


Remember This

by meansgirl



Series: and it feels like love [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Angst, First Meetings, First Time, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Pre-Canon, safe sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 02:17:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20958818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meansgirl/pseuds/meansgirl
Summary: Greg Lestrade and Mycroft Holmes meet in Paris in 1986.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I could not have done this without the support of hoomhum, who has gone above and beyond as a friend/beta/audience reader/delightful human being to encourage and validate me as I toiled. Or without beltainefaerie, who acted as a sharp-eyed editor for the first several drafts (of which there have been many). Thank you both from the bottom of my heart for hand holding me through my first Sherlock fic. WHEW! You're the best! 
> 
> Please see the notes at the end of the work for some mild warnings.

**LONDON**

**MARCH, 2005**

Greg was furious. He was cold and soaked to the bone from a torrential downpour, it was after eleven o’clock at night, and he was arguing with Sherlock _ bloody _ Holmes again.

“Listen,” Sherlock tried, and Greg finally snapped. 

“No, _ you _ listen,” he shouted, louder than was necessary to be heard over the thunder of rain drumming down on the awning above them. “When I tell you to leave a crime scene, you’ll bloody well _ do it. _ I told you I would call you _ if _and when you can be useful. Did I call you tonight, Sherlock?”

After a mutinous pause during which he sucked furiously at his cigarette, Sherlock bit out, _ “No.” _

“I also told you that if I think you’re high, which I _ know _ you are right now, you’re not allowed on my crime scene. Didn’t I say that, Sherlock?”

Sherlock glowered at him, his light eyes a thin line of steely blue around over-blown pupils, and smoked in silence. 

“Give me a cigarette,” Greg commanded, and held out his hand. “_Now, _ Sherlock.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and dug a packet out of his coat pocket. “I’m not that high,” he said. 

“You’re off your tits, you complete idiot,” Greg growled, turning toward the building to shield his lighter from the wind. As he took a drag, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and ignored it. “I don’t need you for this case,” he said. “It’s high profile, Sherlock. It’s delicate, and I can’t have you stamping all over it while you’re out of your mind on smack.”

Sherlock smirked and wriggled his eyebrows in a way he probably thought looked condescending, but in fact looked utterly crazed over his wide, bloodshot eyes and overblown pupils. “I didn’t take heroin,” he scoffed. “You know I’d be lying on the ground by now if I had.”

“_Whatever,_” Greg snapped. His phone stopped ringing. “You know that the point is that I need you to go away. I’m already deep in shit thanks to your theatrics last month with the Pendleton case and—”

“I didn’t simply stumble upon your crime scene, Lestrade,” Sherlock interrupted. “In fact, I’ve been _ avoiding _ you, because I have no desire to be lectured about your supervisor’s absurd requirements—”

“_ Absurd requirements? _For chain of custody? For evidence in a multiple-murder case? Piss off, Sherlock!” Greg ran a hand roughly through his wet hair, squeezing hard with his fingers out of anger and frustration that he didn’t want to channel into a slug to Sherlock’s smug face. Yet. 

“As I was _ saying,” _ Sherlock steamrolled on. “I wasn’t here by fate tonight, Lestrade. I was _ sent _ here.”

Greg’s phone started up again and he reached into his pocket to silence it. Very likely it was Tina, and he was in no state to try and cajole her at the moment. “Sent by who?”

“By the British Government,” Sherlock said, reaching into his pocket for his cigarettes again, popping a fresh one between his lips before the other was even out. 

_ Cocaine, then, _ Greg thought, then rolled his eyes. “Oh? The PM gave you a ring, did he?”

“Higher up than that.” 

Greg’s phone was vibrating again. 

“You should answer your phone, Lestrade,” Sherlock cooed, smiling. “Could be important.”

“I’ll answer when I’m done with y—Wait.” Greg flicked his own spent cigarette butt toward the gutter. “What’s that look for, _ who’s _ calling me?” He reached into his pocket for his phone. 

“It’ll be Mycroft,” Sherlock drawled. “Or his assistant. Probably him, though.”

Greg’s head snapped up so fast he thought he might have broken something. He would swear later that his heart had stopped. “What did you just say?”

“Answer your phone, Lestrade.”

Greg looked down at the outside screen of his phone. _ Caller Unknown. _He flicked it open and brought it to his ear. “Yes?”

“Detective Inspector Lestrade,” said a calm, smooth voice on the other end of the line. “Good evening.”

Greg’s heart started up again, thundering in his ears, pumping blood through his veins and setting fire to his rain-chilled limbs. His phone suddenly felt hot in his grasp. _ That voice. _ “Good evening,” he said, practically gasping it. “To whom am I speaking?”

“This is Mycroft Holmes,” said the voice. “I believe you are currently with my younger brother, who has assisted you on cases before.”

“Yes,” Greg said numbly. “I’m with him.”

“Good,” Mycroft Holmes said. “As you are aware, the crime scene ten stories up from where you are currently standing contains the body of a Mister Dunston. He is a colleague of mine. We both work for the government, but Mister Dunston held a particularly visible position, as you know. My office got word of the discovery of his body perhaps five minutes after the call was made to _ 999 _ by his secretary. As I’m sure you can imagine, it is extremely important that this case is managed carefully, and that the perpetrator of this violence against Mister Dunston is found swiftly. I, believing that he could be of assistance, dispatched Sherlock as soon as I was made aware of the situation. All necessary contact with your superiors has already been made by this office. It is of course, at your discretion, but I assure you Sherlock’s presence tonight has been approved at the highest level.”

Greg turned away from Sherlock and walked a couple of paces away. He closed his eyes, listening to that voice, asking himself if he was sure. He _ was _sure. “Mycroft,” he said, then stopped to clear his throat. “Mister Holmes. Do you know who I am?”

There was a pause. “Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade.”

Greg flailed a hand as his brain worked to come up with a way to figure this out. He stuttered a bit, but managed to say, “Do you know what I _ look _ like?”

“We have never met,” Mycroft said after a lengthy pause that had Greg wincing, knowing he must sound like a complete idiot. 

But he _ knew, _ he _ knew _ that voice. And no one else could _ possibly _ have that bloody ridiculous posh name.

“Haven’t we?” Greg sucked in a breath. “Right. Mister...Mister Holmes, I’ll allow Sherlock to accompany me to the scene, but he is inebriated at present, and will not be permitted to touch anything. SOCO will assist him in any and all necessary movements in order to allow him to see the evidence. Fine?”

Another long pause. “Yes, Inspector, that would be fine. Apologies, one moment…”

Greg held his breath. Over the line there was more silence, and then he heard Mycroft make a sound, a soft _ ahem. _

“My apologies,” Mycroft said. “A momentary distraction. I will stop taking up your valuable time. Thank you for permitting Sherlock to assist.”

“Right,” Greg said. “No problem.” 

Greg flicked the phone shut and turned to Sherlock, who was watching him in silence, an expression on his face Greg hadn’t had much opportunity to see: confusion. 

“What on earth is the matter with you?” Sherlock demanded. “Was my brother horrible to you? He’s annoying, yes, but—Lestrade!”

Greg ignored him and pushed back into the building, heading for the elevator that would take them up to the penthouse, while Sherlock trailed behind him. The two of them tracked mud and rainwater across the pristine white tiles, and the building receptionist gave them both a look of pure hatred as they went. 

“Lestrade,” Sherlock said again as Greg punched the button for the lift. “What did Mycroft say?”

“Nothing,” Greg said flatly. “When we get up there, you are to remove those filthy shoes. You will wear the booties. You will remove your jacket, which is soaking and smells disgusting, by the way. You will wear gloves. Still, even with gloves on, you will touch nothing. You will step on, climb on, tip over, smash, move, vandalize, desecrate _ nothing _ in this flat. You will not touch the body. You will not antagonize my team. You will follow the instructions of _ every _ officer, but especially you will follow mine. Understood?”

Sherlock was silent, studying Greg’s profile. 

“Sherlock,” Greg sighed. “I asked if you understood.”

“I understand,” he said blankly. “Fine. Yes.”

“Good,” Greg said, and the lift doors opened. 

**PARIS**

**AUGUST 1986**

Greg was out of breath by the time he caught up to the man he’d been shouting after. “Your wallet,” he gasped, holding it out. “You dropped it back there. Er—_ tu as laissé _ ? _ Ton _…uh—“ Greg stuttered in rusty French, completely derailed by the sharp blue eyes turning to look at him.

“Thank you,” the man said, reaching for the wallet. “I had no idea.”

Greg blinked. “You’re English,” he said, like an idiot. 

“Yes…?” 

Greg rubbed at the back of his own neck, wincing. “Sorry, obviously you are.”

“Quite alright,” the man assured him as a fleeting smile twitched across his lips. “I haven’t heard an accent such as yours in months, myself.”

Greg thought immediately that his own accent was worlds away from the one he was hearing, all public school, perfectly measured, proper and polite. The guy matched the voice, too. Those jeans were expensive, the leather loafers probably worth more than Greg’s entire wardrobe. The bloke even had expensive _ hair. _Movie star hair, Wall Street guy hair. It was a little long on top, wavy, swept back from his face but for an errant lock falling across his forehead. Auburn, or maybe more ginger than that; it was hard to tell in the dim light of the street. 

It had been hard to tell back at the bar, too, where Greg had certainly been trying to get a better look.

Greg felt his cheeks heat. “Anyway,” he said. “Your wallet fell out of your pocket at the bar on your way out. I…” Greg figured he may as well go for it, _ what the hell— why not? _“I was watching you.”

The other man blinked slowly, like a cat, but then his eyebrows drew together and spots of color began to rise on his cheeks. “I… apologize if I made you uncomfortable. I didn’t mean to stare, it’s just—”

“No, mate, I said _ I _ was watching _ you,” _Greg said. 

“But then—” The man huffed. “It’s just that I was watching you. Too, that is.” He cleared his throat, a polite _ ahem _which Greg found a bit cute. “I was watching you, too. I thought you must have noticed.”

Greg grinned; it spread over his face slowly, keeping pace with the butterflies in his stomach. The man smiled shyly back. “I didn’t realize,” Greg said after a moment. “I would have come and talked to you at the bar, if I had. Then, you were with those stuffy-looking lads, so I thought—” he shrugged. “Dunno.”

“Colleagues, not friends. They _ are _ stuffy. Then, so am I.”

Greg had to duck down a bit to catch those eyes again, and the guy _ smirked _.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Greg said. “What’s your name?”

“I…it’s Mycroft.” 

Greg blinked, surprised by the odd name and the outstretched hand, but took the hand and shook it, taking another chance, holding on a couple of beats too long before sliding his fingers gently across Mycroft’s warm, dry palm as he pulled away. “Greg.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Mycroft said. “Why were you watching me?”

Greg barked a short laugh and swayed back on his heels, one hand fidgeting and grasping at the opposite elbow in an effort to hold still. He was pretty sure he was reading this guy right. If he was wrong, this one didn’t look like the fighting type, so Greg figured the risk of getting punched in the nose was low. 

“Because you’re bloody _ fit, _of course,” he said, brazen. 

Mycroft’s lips twitched again and he looked down at his feet. Greg would’ve thought it was shyness—maybe it was. But that smirk said otherwise.

_ Yes, _ Greg thought. _ Knew it. _

“You were dancing with a very pretty girl—”

“Yeah,” Greg nodded. “Aimee, she’s quite a lot of fun. But I think you could be, too.” 

Mycroft, possibly without realizing it, mirrored Greg’s pose, one hand fiddling with his shirt where the cuff was rolled to just above the opposite elbow. It was a nice shirt; dressy, for a little dive in this particular neighborhood. Mycroft’s fine clothing looked hastily rumpled, like he’d been trying to fit in, coming from a much nicer venue to the bar with cheap drinks and loud music. It had worked; Greg hadn’t noticed the quality from far away. It’s more that the moment Mycroft opened his mouth to speak, he’d transformed and the rest of the clues added up: _ Posh. Very. _

“I’m really not…” Mycroft blushed furiously and attractively and cleared his throat. “That is—”

“Listen,” Greg said, cocking one eyebrow. “D’you want to go for a walk? I’m at a hostel just down that way.”

“Hmm,” Mycroft seemed to consider his response for a moment, but his mouth twisted with certainty after a beat. “I have a flat,” he said. “Close by. No roommates.”

Greg felt like his grin would stretch his skin to the breaking point. “Brilliant,” he said. 

  
**LONDON**

**MARCH, 2005**

Hours after placing the call on Sherlock’s behalf, Mycroft was still at his desk. He felt unable to move, and indeed had not done so for over an hour, ever since the information packet from NSY had come through. Mycroft sat in his chair, elbows propped on his desk, fingers steepled together, and he stared at the printout in front of him: a scan of the identification photo of recently promoted Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade.

It was him.

It was Greg, from Paris. 

Mycroft had known it in his very marrow the moment he heard the voice on the phone, but had been unable to allow himself to come to the conclusion until his assistant had requested and received the confirmation he needed. 

It was him. 

Mycroft had known for weeks that Sherlock had somehow managed to ingratiate himself to an officer with the Met. Sherlock had refused to provide a name, and since Mycroft had been, for a time, on thin ice when it came to appropriating surveillance resources for what might be considered personal use, he had been unable to find out. 

Of course Sherlock’s friendly police officer was Greg, and now, after all this time, Mycroft had his full name. Gregory Lestrade. Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade. 

Mycroft laced his fingers together, rested his chin atop his clenched hands, and squeezed, hard. He breathed slowly. His heart was twenty years old again, beating out of sync with the rest of him, with reality, and he needed to bring it to heel before he did anything further. 

His phone pinged softly by his elbow. Mycroft picked it up. 

** _From: Unknown _ **

_ Hello, this is DI Lestrade. Sherlock provided your number. _

_ I would like to meet with you to discuss this case, as well as your _

_ brother’s involvement with the investigation. I would like to discuss _

_ your brother full stop, if you don’t mind. Is there a convenient time? _

Mycroft closed his eyes. He opened them, saved the number, and typed a reply. 

**To: Gregory Lestrade**

_ I am available tomorrow at 7 a.m., would that time suit you? _

The reply came quickly. 

** _From: Gregory Lestrade_ **

_ If there will be coffee, yes. _

Mycroft sent the address of a cafe near New Scotland Yard and snapped the phone shut. No further texts came through after that, which Mycroft thought was fair enough; it was nearing two in the morning, and according to the packet in front of him, Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade, thirty-eight, had a wife and child at home. Tina, aged thirty, a teacher’s assistant; Katherine, aged nine, fair-haired and blue-eyed, and not Gregory Lestrade’s biological child. 

Mycroft hadn’t read further in the file, and wouldn’t. It felt gauche to do so. Not an invasion of privacy; Mycroft was beyond such concerns at this point in his life and career. But the act of not only tearing apart scar tissue, but rubbing salt in the reopened wound, was self-indulgent and melodramatic. Mycroft wouldn’t allow himself to do it, to wallow in old grief and anger as if he hadn’t lived nineteen years since.

Shoving the file aside, and then tipping it into a drawer hastily slid open then slammed shut for good measure, Mycroft nudged his computer mouse, waking the machine from its screensaver. There was work to be done— and while he wouldn’t indulge in the theatrics of hyperventilating over a simple personnel file, he didn’t feel in the mood to sit awake all night in an empty house. He could do that just as easily here, and perhaps actually accomplish something. 

So, that is what he did. 

**PARIS**

**AUGUST 1986**

Mycroft hesitated by the door, watching as Greg glanced around the little flat with his dark eyes wide and curious. 

“You read a lot,” he said, picking a book up off the top of a stack which teetered on the table in the little lounge area. He gestured with it toward the overflowing bookshelf on the far wall. 

“I do,” Mycroft murmured, reaching behind himself to flick the lock. 

“For fun?”

“Sometimes,” Mycroft said. “Most of those, yes. My school texts are at home.”

“How long have you been in Paris?”

Mycroft pushed off the door and stepped nervously into his own flat. Greg set the book back down and flicked his gaze to the crate of albums beside Mycroft’s turntable, by the window. 

“Eleven weeks,” Mycroft said, as Greg reached out gingerly to peek behind the topmost record. 

“Mind if I put this on?” Greg held up Mycroft’s copy of _ All Of This And Nothing. _

“Not at all,” Mycroft said. He shoved his hands into his pockets, unsure of what he should do with them other than reach out and touch the man currently flipping a record between his fingers. He supposed touching was the point of this exercise, but it seemed that Greg had actual socializing in mind, first. Mycroft grasped for something to say. “Drink?”

Greg looked up from the turntable and grinned. “Yeah, cheers.”

They settled onto the wicker loveseat together with glasses of a white wine Mycroft was glad to have stashed in his refrigerator weeks ago. 

“And yourself?” Mycroft asked, picking up the thread of conversation from before. “You’re visiting Paris for how long?”

“Ah, well,” Greg winced. “I sort of moved here last year. My dad lives here, see.”

Mycroft raised his eyebrows and tried to think of the most tactful way to respond. He decided to pretend that he couldn’t read the answers on the soles of Greg’s shoes, the wear and tear of his jeans, and the flop of his hair. Try as he might, Mycroft couldn’t help but deduce it; he could turn it off somewhat most of the time, but in order to make it work, he needed to keep his distance, avert his eyes. Greg, unbearably handsome and so at ease and warm that it was impossible not to feel drawn in, had Mycroft’s attention, and his mind had sifted and highlighted endless details without his even trying. But to admit that would be rude at worst and off-putting at best, so Mycroft simply asked the question instead. “But you’re staying at a hostel?”

“Yeah,” Greg shrugged and made a face, taking a sip of wine. “It didn’t go so well, going to stay with the old man. Was nice to see my Nan before she passed after Christmas, but once she was gone it was...” He gestured, waving away familial discontent like an errant fly, still smiling lopsidedly even as pain, the kind a person is accustomed to already, not fresh, flickered behind his eyes. “Not worth staying, really. I’ve been hopping around a bit, decided it’s time to go back to jolly old England. I head back next week.”

“I see,” Mycroft murmured, realizing that Greg didn’t wish to dwell on the topic of why he was leaving Paris. “I’m due back in a month, as it happens.”

“Lovely.” Greg grinned. “You’ve missed it?”

Mycroft couldn’t help the sound he made then, the verbal equivalent to tilting one’s hand back and forth in a _ so-so _ motion. “Even if I didn’t miss it, I would be expected back,” he said ruefully. “I’m only here for a temporary posting. An internship, of sorts, before I start my position in the autumn.”

“Let me guess,” Greg drawled, leaning back against the arm of the loveseat and examining Mycroft over the rim of his wine glass. “You’re clearly straight out of Oxford, aren’t you? I assume you’re off to…hm. Finance?”

Mycroft snorted. “No.”

“Which part?” 

“Both, actually,” Mycroft said, smiling thinly, inexplicably embarrassed that Greg, while wrong about the particulars, had more or less seen him for what he was so easily. “I went to St. Andrews as a matter of fact; it infuriated my mother. Father was pleased, however. He wouldn’t have minded had I gone to Oxford, like Mummy, or Cambridge like my grandfather. But he finds both ‘_ a bit up their own arse about it all’ _and thought St. Andrew’s slightly less so.”

Mycroft didn’t feel the need to elaborate on his own feelings about all of it. Sherlock heading off to boarding school (and exhibiting no memory of events that would haunt the rest of them for years to come) had felt like permission to depart. Scotland may as well have been another planet, for as removed as it would be from home and all that it entailed. Mycroft had been desperate to escape, knowing it was only temporary. He was sure his father hadn’t realized it, but Mycroft had taken his vague support and leveraged it. 

Greg barked a laugh. “Funny,” he said. “Sounds like a riot, your old man?”

“God,” Mycroft chuckled. He let himself sink back a bit in his seat, relaxing into conversation and forgetting some of his anxiety. This person did not know him. He could share or keep whatever he chose. Yes, Greg had caught on quickly to the upper crust education, had guessed at the typical rich bastard profession which, had circumstances been different than what they were, Mycroft _ could _ have pursued. But Mycroft did have some opportunity for a bit of...temporary self-reinvention. Still, he found himself wanting to say rather more honest things than he would to anyone else. “I can’t imagine calling my father _ my old man. _But yes, I suppose he’s a bit funny. Sweet. The kinder one, out of all of us.”

“How many?”

“Oh,” Mycroft cleared his throat. “I have a younger brother. He turns eleven this year. The two of us and Mummy—Father calls us the _ brainy bunch.” _

Greg grinned. “I’ll just bet,” he said. “So, not finance?”

“Civil service,” Mycroft said, then shifted conversation away from himself quickly— he could sit there and lie all night about a boring, entry-level position, but that was the polar opposite of what Mycroft wanted to do with his evening. “And you?” 

“I…have no idea,” Greg said sheepishly. “I reckon I should figure it out, though. I’m twenty in the winter. “

Mycroft smiled. “We’re about the same age. My birthday was in May.”

“Surprising,” Greg said, knocking back the last of his wine and turning to set his glass down on the little side table. When he turned back to Mycroft, he shifted a bit closer on the loveseat. “I would’ve pegged you for a bit older than me.”

“Oh?” 

“I tend to go for older guys,” Greg admitted. 

_ Oh, _Mycroft thought, feeling his cheeks heat in embarrassment. “I…”

“You’re gay, right?”

_ Lord. _ Mycroft had never been asked in that way— straightforward, blunt. _ Casual. _ “Well,” he said, feeling a bit breathless. 

“I thought I was gay for a while,” Greg continued on. “But I do like girls. As well as boys, that is.” He grinned, pressing his tongue between his teeth. “Do you like girls?”

Mycroft took a shuddering breath. “I…don’t,” he admitted 

“Hmm,” Greg nodded. “Cool,” he said. 

“Is it?” Mycroft asked faintly. He felt as though his face could melt right off his skull, his skin was so hot with embarrassment and confusion, and quite a bit of fear. 

“‘Course,” Greg said, and then he shifted even closer and put his hand on Mycroft’s thigh. “I don’t mind we’re the same age, just so you know. I didn’t mean to sound like I’ve got a fetish or something. I’ve barely been with anyone—just a couple of blokes, really.”

Mycroft stared at the last of his wine and tried not to twitch under the soft pressure of Greg’s hand. He struggled to think whether he had ever been touched so casually. He’d known what he was doing when he invited Greg back to the flat, but now his stomach swooped with nerves. His palms sweat with uncertainty. Eventually, he said, “Just the one…a boy from University. I—I apologize, I’m not sure what you’re expecting from this.”

Greg stiffened and lifted his hand an inch off of Mycroft’s leg. “Well,” he said. “A kiss might be nice? Or…we can just talk?”

“I don’t usually…” Mycroft cleared his throat and placed his hand over Greg’s pressing it gently back down to where it had been. He let his own fingers stroke along the backs of Greg’s before withdrawing. “I’m very cautious.”

“That’s smart,” Greg said. “Me, too. I— I suppose having the option, you know, with birds. It makes me sort of lucky.”

“You should still be careful,” Mycroft said, then cleared his throat against the sharpness in his voice. “That is, we should all be.”

“Yeah,” Greg agreed easily, while Mycroft internally berated himself for making things even more awkward. “I know. Had the test; everything was fine.”

“As did I,” Mycroft said, ignoring the fact that it had been extremely high-level paranoia to have done so, considering his lack of experience. “Same result.”

The silence which followed was so awkward that Mycroft expected Greg to stop touching him at any moment, dust his hands of the entire affair, and leave. 

Instead, Greg squeezed his thigh gently and said, “About the kiss.”

Mycroft couldn’t help but laugh, and finally brought himself to look away from his glass and at Greg’s sparkling eyes. “I would like that,” he found himself saying, and then he was being kissed. 

It was soft, not too much, and Greg placed his free hand along the side of Mycroft’s neck. His palm was dry and hot, his fingers just a little rough against Mycroft’s skin. Mycroft liked it; wanted to press into it or reach up and push the hand more firmly into his own skin. The kiss was a locking of lips, nothing more, and then Greg nipped Mycroft’s lower lip and sat back. 

“I was right,” Greg said. “It _ was _ nice.”

Mycroft felt himself blush harder and he looked away, only for Greg to use that warm hand to tilt Mycroft’s face back toward him. He licked his lips, and kissed Mycroft again, his mouth soft and lush and wet. Mycroft winced a little as a soft, high-pitched noise escaped his own chest, but Greg responded to it by drawing away and then pressing back in at a new angle, his mouth falling slightly open. Mycroft told himself to be brave for once in his life, and he took the invitation, tracing the soft seam of Greg’s lower lip with his own tongue. Greg groaned and tugged Mycroft forward, his hand pulling at him with pressure at the join of neck and shoulder. 

“Wine—” Mycroft gasped, and Greg grabbed the glass away from him, twisting to set it beside his own, then immediately resumed the kiss. The glass dealt with, he was free to put Mycroft wherever he liked, and Mycroft was happy to let him. He found himself pulled over Greg’s reclining body, Greg’s spread legs in his snug black jeans bracketing Mycroft’s hips as the kiss turned hot and wet and dirty. 

“Christ,” Greg muttered when they parted for air. “Posh boys, who knew?”

Mycroft laughed, feeling hot and shivery, his face so close to Greg’s that he could feel Greg’s breath on his cheek. “I’m not really posh,” he said, which was half of the truth. “I just pretend to be.”

“_ Please,” _ Greg shot back. “ _ Mummy wished me to attend Cambridge, but Father was quite satisfied with St. Andrews, and the butler and the cook—” _

“That is an appalling approximation of my accent, and we do not have a butler or a cook.”

“We do _ nawt _ have a _ butlah,” _Greg parroted, sharpening up his consonants. “A housekeeper, then?”

Mycroft winced and looked away, and Greg shook with laughter under him. 

“I don’t mind,” Greg giggled. “Long as you don’t mind having it off with half an orphan from a series of grotty council estates.”

Mycroft didn’t know what to say, and Greg took mercy on him after an awkward pause by hooking a hand around his neck and pulling him down for more exquisite kissing. It wasn’t until much later, with Mycroft’s shirt unbuttoned and hanging off his shoulders, his own hands shoved up underneath Greg’s t-shirt, that they stopped to breathe again. 

“This flat got a bed?” Greg asked. 

“Yes,” Mycroft replied. “It certainly has.”


	2. Chapter 2

**PARIS**

**AUGUST, 1986**

  


Greg was used to the mechanics of your basic hook up. Mostly, he’d performed them with women. Meet at a bar, buy her a drink, make the eyes, dance a little, kiss a little, back to hers, kiss some more, have an enjoyable time in bed and hope he’d provided a good time for her as well, get dressed, go home. Even with the three men he’d managed to pull, the game had been basically the same— though Greg found men to be rather more direct, cut-to-the-chase sorts. Hell, he’d only ever made it to one of the guys’ places before getting down to business. Other than that, trading blow jobs out behind a pub or engaging in a quick mutual wank in the backseat of a car had failed to prepare him for what he was doing with Posh Mycroft in his charming Parisian flat. 

“I’ve never kissed a guy this much before,” Greg said, sprawled on top of Mycroft in his soft double bed. 

“Sorry,” Mycroft murmured back, then kissed him again. “Should we stop?”

“Fuck no, I like it.” 

“Good.”

They got their tops off and rolled around kissing and groping for a while, and Greg found it all seriously fun and intensely weird; maybe a little scary. He felt like a complete idiot, not thinking when he’d said all that about sleeping with women. Of course he was careful. Nobody wanted the clap, and certainly he wasn’t in the market for a _ kid. _ But of course it wasn’t just _ that. _ He’d been in Paris too long. Things were different there, more hush-hush about the virus. Having only bothered to meet women for the last year, Greg had barely heard reference to nor spoken about the possibility of getting sick. And now there he was, half naked in a bloke’s bed, a _ gay _ bloke who probably did think about it, hear about it, talk about it. All the time. Christ, Mycroft might know someone who was ill right _ now. _ Greg was a tosser of the highest order.

“Listen,” Greg said into the next kiss, then turned his face away to speak. “Listen, Mycroft—I want you to know I. That is, do you have condoms here?”

Mycroft blinked down at him, pink-cheeked with tiny freckles standing out across his nose, and one curl of dark red hair hanging down in his eyes. “Yes, of course.”

“That’s good,” Greg said feebly. “I mean, what you said about being careful was right, I just—”

Mycroft sat up, straddling Greg’s hips. He pushed his hair off his face, but an errant curl flopped down over his forehead anyway. Greg let his eyes trail appreciatively down. Mycroft was slim; he had a nice chest, lightly dusted with hair and liberally sprinkled with freckles, and just then it was flushed, the pink bleeding down his neck and fading along his ribcage. His narrow stomach heaved as he caught his breath, and a thin line of hair trailed from his belly button to the waistband of his expensive jeans. For want of something to do with his hands, Greg hooked a finger into the butter-soft leather of Mycroft’s belt, running his finger absently between it and the denim as he tried to get his brain to pick up where it had left off. It was no good, all he could do was stare. Mycroft was a bit delicate-looking. He was certainly less hairy than Greg, and clearly didn’t go in for shaving or waxing or whatever a lot of gay guys were into as far as Greg’s experience went. Mycroft had long, thin, soft fingers, and slim thighs. His cock was a hard line in his jeans, distorting the fabric. Greg’s mouth watered. 

“If you’ll grab a condom I’ll blow you,” Greg blurted, then forced his eyes back up to Mycroft’s face, feeling himself flush. _ Nice one, _ he thought. _ You sound like a right bloody tart. _

Mycroft looked down at him, eyebrows knitted together. “You don’t have to.”

“I want to,” Greg insisted. “I like it.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t?”

Mycroft shrugged one elegant shoulder. “I’ve never done it.”

_ How? _ Greg thought. _ With that gorgeous mouth? _Out loud, he said, “Really? Why not?”

Mycroft leaned back down and kissed along Greg’s shoulder, his trapezius, down to his collarbone. “Lack of opportunity?” He said, then bit, gently, just to the left of Greg’s nipple. “No one requested it of me?”

“Has anyone ever given you a blowjob?”

Mycroft pressed his forehead to Greg’s sternum and kept quiet. The kissing had been lovely, little fluttery touches and shy bites, but Greg could tell Mycroft had only done it to hide his face. Greg pet his hair to comfort him and hold him a little closer, give him an excuse to hide his blush a little longer. 

“No?” Greg pressed. _ “Really?” _

“As I told you, I was with one boy at school and then— it’s difficult to— I don’t know how— _ It doesn't matter,” _ Mycroft sat up again, shrugging Greg’s hand away and staring down at him, still red in the face but with a defiant tilt to his chin. “Yes,” he said shortly. “Yes, I have condoms, and yes I’d like…that.”

“Great,” Greg said. He grinned up at Mycroft’s face, all consternation and awkwardness. “Get them.”

  
  


**LONDON**

**MARCH, 2005**

  


Greg recognized him on sight. Mycroft was late by five minutes, and Greg had been early by ten, so he had reached the point of staring anxiously at the door to the cafe by the time Mycroft walked through it. 

_ Jesus, _ Greg thought, taking in the suit and the umbrella, the perfect tie and shined shoes. He could barely bring himself to look at Mycroft’s face, but the hair color was the same—worn slicked down with product to keep the curl in check, but still a dark auburn. When he did look, Mycroft’s face was _ so _different. No longer soft with the lingering traces of baby fat, and the sweetness around the eyes had been tempered by years and, Greg assumed, diligent practice in front of a mirror. Or maybe it had been ground out of him. Maybe he was a complete prick, now. Greg didn’t know. The mouth was the same. The chin. That long neck. Greg nearly had to bury his face in his hands, the rush of memory was so strong. Instead, he held his coffee between his palms in a death grip and watched Mycroft cross the cafe toward him. 

Mycroft leaned his umbrella against the wall and pulled out the second chair without even a hint of a scrape of its legs, and sat in front of Greg calmly, smoothly, elegantly. But his face. 

His face. Greg could see the recognition there, a flicker of disbelief, despite the fact that, from what Sherlock told him, Mycroft was damn near omniscient. 

“You know who I am,” Greg managed to grate out. 

“Yes,” Mycroft said, even-toned and quiet. 

“Sherlock says you know everything. Did you know, before—”

“No,” Mycroft interrupted. “I was only given the name of the detective being dispatched to the scene. I spoke with Sherlock, who confirmed that the name was that of the detective he met some weeks ago. I coordinated from there. I had no idea. It was… a coincidence.”

Greg breathed in through his nose and then slowly out through his mouth, letting go of what he had labeled _ assumption number one _ in his mind. “Okay,” he said, nodding. “Okay.”

Mycroft stared at him placidly from across the table. Greg stared back, less calmly, his left leg bouncing with nerves, his fingers tight on his coffee cup. He needed to tackle _ assumption number two. _

“Can you do what your brother does?” Greg asked after a long silence. 

“Yes.”

“Could you, before?”

“Yes.”

Greg sucked air between his teeth and looked down. “Okay. Alright.”

  


**PARIS**

**AUGUST, 1986**

  


Mycroft was floating. He was really just—floating. Out of his own body. Up there around the ceiling. Looking down on himself sprawled naked on his bed with a gorgeous man knelt between his legs. 

“You alright?” Greg asked, swiping a hand across his mouth, which was swollen and red and wet with saliva. “It was okay?”

Mycroft flung an arm over his eyes and groaned. “Oh, god.”

“Yeah,” Greg laughed. “It was okay, then.”

“You’re magical,” Mycroft slurred, then uncovered his face to lean up on his elbows. 

Greg grinned back at him and shrugged, affecting sheepishness. He was still hard, his cock jutting out from his open fly. Mycroft hadn’t noticed, but Greg must have unbuttoned his own jeans while his mouth was occupied. Had he touched himself?

“Let me—” Mycroft started.

“Hold on, now,” Greg said, one hand pressing to the center of Mycroft’s chest. “Condom. You won’t want it slipping off and making a mess.”

Mycroft could not have cared less about whether he made a mess of himself, the sheets, the flat, or all of the city of Paris in that moment, but he let Greg press him back a bit. He winced when the condom came off and Greg’s hand slipped over the sensitive head of his cock. He pointed vaguely at the trash basket in the corner then flopped back against the pillows, waiting for Greg to come back. When he did, Mycroft rolled to his side and reached for him. 

Greg stood there at the edge of the bed, jeans hauled back up over his hips but still unbuttoned. Mycroft shoved them down again and took Greg’s cock in hand, looking up at him from the pillows. 

“Do you want—” 

“Nah, just your hand is fine,” Greg murmured, reaching down to pet Mycroft’s hair away from his face. “God, you’re lovely.”

“No,” Mycroft protested, even as he watched his own hand working over the silky soft skin of Greg’s shaft. 

“Oh, yes,” Greg breathed. “Really, you are.” 

Mycroft thought how easy it would be to lean forward and take Greg into his mouth. His stomach flipped at the thought. 

“Please,” Mycroft murmured. “I want to try it.”

“Really?” Greg caught Mycroft’s wrist, stilling the motion of his hand. “Sure?”

“Very,” Mycroft replied. 

Greg shifted away, grasping for the strip of condoms discarded somewhere on the bed. “Alright,” he said. “I dunno if I’ve ever been anyone’s first time. I get to be yours in two areas tonight. It’s my lucky day.”

Mycroft rolled his eyes. “I’m not…_ technically _ a virgin.”

“Alright, love, don’t get upset,” Greg teased, then ripped open a packet with his teeth. “Will you put this on for me?”

Mycroft took it with numb fingers, and fumbled the circle of latex out. He had never put a condom on someone else before. He’d practiced on himself once when he thought he and Christopher might— but they never had. He felt his face heat as he reminded himself of the mechanics of it. Greg’s hand found its way into his hair, soothing. 

“Your hands are ridiculous,” Greg said softly, then groaned as Mycroft rolled the condom down over the length of him. “Really pretty, your hands.”

“You have a gorgeous cock,” Mycroft found himself saying, shocking himself. “Tell me what to do.”

“Christ,” Greg sighed. He reached down to twist a piece of Mycroft’s hair around his finger. “Do you want—I can get up on the bed with you, hang on.”

Greg stepped the rest of the way out of his trousers, then stretched out beside Mycroft and reached for him, pulling him into another long, languid kiss. When he released Mycroft again, he said, “In your own time.”

Mycroft laughed, electing not to play at sniping over the lofty way Greg said it, a clear dig at Mycroft’s accent, again. Instead, he felt the need to check: “Can I touch you?”

“Of course you can,” Greg said. 

“Can I kiss you anywhere?”

Greg smiled and touched Mycroft’s hair again. He seemed to like Mycroft’s hair. “Yes, of course you can,” he repeated, sweet and soft this time.

Mycroft bit the inside of his cheek, stifling the urge to say that with Christopher, there had been _ rules _ for all of this. Greg didn’t need to hear about any of it, and Mycroft had all that skin spread out before him, and permission had been given to touch it. He was far from stupid; it was time to keep his mouth shut. Figuratively. 

The first thing Mycroft noticed and catalogued in his mind was how incredibly responsive Greg was. Mycroft’s lips on his neck elicited shivers and hums, practically _ purrs _ . His teeth applied there resulted in a gasp. If Mycroft flicked his tongue over a nipple, Greg would jerk and his back would bow, and Mycroft’s teeth _ there _achieved sounds that seemed to leave Greg’s chest and fly straight to Mycroft’s gut, stirring arousal there despite the fact that he’d just come not five minutes ago. 

Greg’s ribs were ticklish, but he liked the shock of it. He huffed and pretended to bat at Mycroft’s hands, when really he pressed Mycroft’s searching fingers closer, further into the dip at his side, and his hips jerked when Mycroft tickled him gently while trailing a wet line of kisses down from his navel. 

“I think you can figure it out from here,” Greg said huskily as Mycroft used his hand to tilt Greg’s cock toward his lips. “Just cover your teeth and start slow. You’ll be fine.”

Mycroft stared up the length of Greg’s tanned body and was met with kind, reassuring eyes. Greg reached down and threaded his fingers in Mycroft’s hair. 

“You don’t know what you look like,” he said. “Do you? Go on, pretty boy. I’ll help steer, yeah?”

Mycroft leaned into the touch like a cat, and Greg tightened his fingers ever so slightly, pressing against Mycroft’s scalp and pulling his hair gently. Mycroft’s eyes drifted closed, a shiver running down his spine from the barely-there pain, and he leaned the last inch forward, taking Greg’s cock between his lips. 

The taste of latex was less than pleasant. But it was warm; hot, even. Greg’s cock was hot and hard against his lips and tongue, and Mycroft could feel the ridge of the head, the tight line of a vein. Mycroft couldn’t help the sound he made as he closed his lips around the head and sucked. He remembered every infinitesimal movement Greg had made when he’d done this to Mycroft, but Mycroft found himself distracted. All this input: Greg’s hips twitching; his hand tightening even further into Mycroft’s hair, a deep groan that Mycroft could feel against his own palm, which rested just above Greg’s navel, his fingers raking restlessly over the skin there then down through the line of hair, following it until he reached the base of Greg’s cock and gripped it again, holding it in the circle of his thumb and forefinger. Mycroft wondered if he could get his lips far enough down to brush his own fingers, petting around the base of Greg’s cock. 

Probably not. _ Not this time, _Mycroft thought, trying to slide his lips down as far as they’d go before he felt like he might gag. He didn’t let himself actually gag, terrified of embarrassing himself. Greg hadn’t gagged when he did this; Mycroft wouldn’t either. He moved his hand away and down further, to feel the weight of Greg’s balls in his palm. 

“So good,” Greg murmured. “See? You don’t need me to tell you a thing, gorgeous.”

Mycroft let his eyes flutter open and he looked up the long line of Greg’s body. Greg had propped himself up on one elbow, and he quirked a smile down at Mycroft, his dark eyes hooded, soft. Mycroft had never been _ looked at _ so much before. 

“Look at you,” Greg said, and Mycroft shuddered, feeling as though he had just been mind-read. Greg slid his hand from Mycroft’s hair down to the side of his face, stroking at the corner of Mycroft’s mouth where it was stretched. “Perfect. Don’t stop, love.”

Mycroft moaned around the mouthful and pulled up and nearly off, flicking his tongue around the flared head, like he remembered Greg doing for him.

“Fast learner,” Greg gasped, letting himself fall back against the pillows. “This won’t take long. I got all wound up seeing to you. _ God, _ your mouth—”

It was a matter of getting sloppy, it seemed. Greg had sucked Mycroft off neatly, all tight suction and relentless grip of his fist. He’d seemed to read Mycroft’s every twitch and moan like music, like a virtuoso. Possibly Mycroft was assigning far too much credit to Greg based on the fact that it had been the first time anyone had done such a thing to him. But it had felt masterful, at the time. Mycroft drew on every skill he had, deciding as he applied himself to giving his first blow job that all of his intelligence, all of his lauded talent and uncanny ability when it came to observation, meant absolutely _ nothing _ if he couldn’t use it to reduce the man in his mouth, under his hands, to a shivering, sobbing mess. 

It was down to endorphins. It was because he liked to win. It was all chemical. He could tell himself these things all night long. But Mycroft read Greg like a well-thumbed book, and loved every moment. He found that tugging at Greg’s balls, that slackening his mouth and making obscene, wet sounds made Greg melt and reform under his hands, his body going tight and then boneless over and over again. Mycroft soothed him with a circling thumb at his hip bone, his other hand jerking lazily over Greg’s cock as he popped off to gasp in air. 

“Fucking _ hell, _Mycroft,” Greg gasped at the ceiling. “You’ve really never done this before?”

“Really,” Mycroft replied, breathless and gravelly. He barely recognized his own voice. “I like it.”

Greg made as if to say something else, but whatever it was was subsumed by a blissful groan as Mycroft got back to work, spreading saliva with his hand down to Greg’s balls, slicking the skin behind them. Mycroft pressed a knuckle there as he sucked, because it was something he liked to do to himself sometimes and he wondered if Greg liked it too. It only took a handful of moments for Greg to shout, hand grasping for Mycroft’s hair again, and come with a series of convulsive twitches. 

Mycroft could feel the full tip of the condom as he slid his mouth away. It was strange and awkward, but the points of fleeting pain along his scalp, the feel of sweat under his hand, the buzzing swollen feeling of his lips, were enough to override it. 

“C’mere,” Greg said, and Mycroft went. 

The kissing had been good from the start; Greg was excellent at it, and Mycroft felt it was probably the area he had the most experience in, himself. But it was even better now. The kisses wiped away the taste of latex, and satisfaction made them lazy and sloppy, more familiar. 

“Should I hurry up and fuck off?” Greg asked when they eventually parted. “Get my clothes and leave you alone?”

“If that’s what you want,” Mycroft replied, cautious. “I wouldn’t mind if you stayed.”

Through the open door, the strains of _ The Ghost In You _ could be heard from the turntable. “This is my favorite on the album,” Greg said. “Would be a shame to miss it because I’m scurrying out the door.”

“The record is almost finished.”

“Yeah.”

Mycroft smiled slowly. “I have a lot of records.”

  


**LONDON**

**MARCH, 2005**

  


Mycroft shifted uncomfortably in his seat and cleared his throat. “Detective Inspector—”

“Call me Greg, _ god, _ are you kidding me—”

“Greg,” Mycroft corrected, keeping his voice very soft, though he was desperate to correct the assumption written all over Greg’s face, in the tension of his shoulders and the white of his knuckles. He leaned forward in his seat. “My abilities in deduction had nothing to do with why we lost touch.”

“You can see that I’m thinking that,” Greg said. “You can probably see that I’ve been up all night. Thinking that.”

“Yes,” Mycroft said simply. “I can. I wish to disabuse you of the notion immediately. Our losing touch was simply...circumstantial. It wasn’t intentional.”

Mycroft watched relief move slowly across Greg’s face, and for a moment he was stunned at how very little had changed in those features in almost two decades. Greg was still handsome, perhaps even moreso now that his hair was silver and his eyes were lined with the evidence of laughter as well as stress. His eyes themselves were still as soft and as honest as Mycroft remembered them, and his expressions started with them, still. Relief had prompted them closed for a moment, and when they opened again, there was a lingering sadness alongside confusion at Mycroft’s non-explanation. 

“Well,” Greg said. “Okay?”

Mycroft sighed heavily and settled back in his chair. He wasn’t sure he wanted to rehash the events that lead to his failure to keep in touch with Greg after their time together in Paris. He owed the man _ some _explanation, though. Or, at least, Mycroft had always wished he could explain, and here was the only chance he would get. 

“When I returned home, there was a significant amount of upheaval in the family. Otherwise, I might have tried contacting you. As it was, there was no time to stop and think.” Mycroft wished he could force himself to sound even slightly apologetic. He _ was _ sorry. He had always been sorry over it, but more than anything, he had felt sorry for _ himself _ at the time. Even now, Mycroft could feel the echoes of it all: Eurus, his parents, Uncle Rudy, the Diogenes club, work, work, work, exhaustion, gnawing loneliness. But this long after the fact, and with decades of habit, Mycroft knew he sounded cold, and in that moment he loathed himself for it.

“I suppose I can understand that,” Greg murmured. 

This was an awkward space after that. Mycroft tried not to study Greg too closely, knowing it could be off-putting, being analyzed by sight. Mycroft could see the relief still, in the knowledge that Mycroft had not somehow deduced something lacking in Greg all that time ago. Mycroft swallowed against the familiar pang of regret, that Greg had thought so even for a night. He could also see, so easily, that Greg was angry, on some level, at the explanation. It was a flimsy one, Mycroft knew, but he couldn’t stand to elaborate, not in this very public setting, on this little sleep, this angry with himself.

“I’m a copper because of you,” Greg said into the too-long silence. 

  


**PARIS**

**AUGUST, 1986**

Mycroft would later remember some things about his time with Greg more clearly than others.

Greg eating a croissant and forcing Mycroft to take half. 

“You’re a skinny bastard,” he said. “Eat it and shut up.”

“I was a chubby child.”

_ “So? _”

He would remember being sent off to work on Monday. Greg fixed his tie for him. 

“I wore a uniform in school, don’t look so surprised,” he teased. “Now go, be a captain of industry while I…I dunno. Wander about for a bit, then come back here to greet you with your pipe and slippers or whatever.”

“My housewife for nine days?” Mycroft drawled, raising one eyebrow. It had seemed so simple to give Greg a key to the flat. Not strange at all. 

“Your kept boy maybe,” Greg said and rolled his eyes. “Now go.”

“Going,” Mycroft murmured, and kissed Greg goodbye. 

Mycroft would remember having dinner out at some cheap little place that night, and then back to the flat for records and talking and foolish fumbling on the floor, then rutting against each other in bed. On his second attempt at giving oral sex, Mycroft managed almost all of Greg’s length before he nearly gagged himself. 

Greg stopped him just when Mycroft thought things were getting particularly interesting, the movements of Greg’s hips under Mycroft’s hands gaining more and more urgency. He was confused by the sudden halt in the proceedings when Greg tugged on Mycroft’s hair and gasped, “Wait.”

“Did I do something wrong?” Mycroft demanded, swiping a hand over his wet mouth, urgent with the need to refine his technique. 

Greg huffed and tugged on him again, indicating that he wanted Mycroft’s face nearer his own. Mycroft moved, and Greg pulled him down into his arms and kissed him sloppily. 

“You did everything right,” Greg said when they parted. “I just wasn’t ready to come.”

“Oh,” Mycroft said. “Why?”

“I wanted to touch you, too,” Greg replied, speaking as he reached down for Mycroft’s cock, hard and leaking between them. 

Mycroft groaned, tipping his forehead down against Greg’s shoulder, the better to see what Greg was doing to him. The sight of his own cock disappearing in the tight, hot grip of Greg’s hand, there by the crease of Greg’s thigh, alongside Greg’s length still covered in latex. 

“You need to keep slippery stuff near the bed,” Greg muttered, squeezing and twisting on the upstroke. “This could get real interesting if you did.”

“I--What?”

Greg just laughed and kissed Mycroft again, then wriggled further under him, lining up their erections side-by-side. 

“Don’t be squeamish now,” he said, and spit into his own palm. 

“That’s--”

“Gross, yeah,” Greg agreed, even as he slicked Mycroft’s length with it and then snugged their cocks together and moved his hand over them, clenching the fingers of his other hand into Mycroft’s arse, encouraging him to move into Greg’s grip. 

“_ Oh,” _ Mycroft gasped. 

“It’s better without the condom,” Greg breathed, “but--”

“_ Take it off,” _ Mycroft commanded, pulling away to give Greg room to do so. 

“Don’t be silly,” Greg said. “It’ll still be good this way. Anyway, what were you _ doing _with that other bastard,” he grumbled. “This is basic good stuff, Mycroft.”

“Hands,” Mycroft gasped, shuddering at the sensation of the head of Greg’s cock catching at his own, hot and hard and impossibly good. “Just hands.”

“What a tosser he must have been,” Greg laughed, tipping their faces together for a breathless kiss as Mycroft’s hips thrust down, rutting himself harder against Greg to spectacular results. “You have a beautiful cock, too, you know.”

“Don’t make fun,” Mycroft moaned into Greg’s mouth. 

“‘m not,” Greg insisted, then kissed him again. “You feel so good, fuck, help me, get your hand--there, yes.”

Mycroft marvelled at the sensation, his own long fingers entangled with Greg’s rougher ones, his skin and the condom slick with saliva, the scrape of pubic hair and the ripple of sensation as Greg widened the spread of his legs and wrapped them around Mycroft, pulling him in closer. 

Mycroft could be _ inside _ Greg from this position. The thought made him dizzy, it made him gasp into Greg’s mouth. His hand tightened, and Greg’s copied the increase in pressure. 

“You can come on me this way,” Greg rumbled into Mycroft’s ear.

Mycroft shuddered. “Oh, god.”

“I want you to,” Greg said, then used his free hand to tilt Mycroft’s lips back toward himself for a kiss, sloppy, his tongue fucking into Mycroft’s mouth in sync with the frantic movement of their hips. 

Mycroft tried to keep quiet, but a groan came keening out of him as he spiraled closer and closer to orgasm. Greg reached down to clench his fingers into Mycroft’s arse cheek, encouraging him on while nonsensical filth and effusive praise fell from his lips. 

“That’s it, love,_ fuck, _” Greg growled. “Give it to me, come all over me, you’re perfect, that’s just right, you feel so good—”

Mycroft came hard, hips stuttering and then stilling as he cried out, each sound kissed and licked from his lips by a laughing Greg, who thrust up into the grip of his own hand and Mycroft’s, which had gone lax with the first white-out wave of pleasure. Mycroft whimpered as Greg’s cock, impossibly hard, rubbed against his own sensitive head, but he rearranged his hand quickly, getting a solid grip around Greg’s length and jerking him fast and hard even while his own body still trembled with aftershocks, his head spinning when he realized his fingers were slick now with his own come. 

“_ Yes,” _ Greg shouted, and in moments had stilled, too, the fingernails of one hand scraping up Mycroft’s back, the thumb and forefinger of the other wrapped around Mycroft’s wrist where he moved in gentling motions, drawing Greg’s orgasm out until he was twitching and gasping under Mycroft and staring up at him through half-closed, pleasure-drunk eyes. 

“Beautiful,” Mycroft murmured. 

“_ Gorgeous,” _ Greg countered, and hauled Mycroft down for a kiss. 

After, Greg announced that he was starving. 

“You haven’t got anything in your fridge!” He exclaimed. “Just wine and lemons. What are you living on?”

“Restaurants,” Mycroft replied, haughty. “Of course.”

He heard Greg open the freezer and make a triumphant _ ah-ha _ sound followed by a clatter of silverware and the click of the freezer shutting. Mycroft groaned when Greg returned to the bedroom holding a half-empty carton of ice cream and two spoons. 

“You’ve got a sweet tooth,” Greg said, walking up the length of the bed on his knees and straddling Mycroft’s hips. “There are three types of ice cream in there.”

“It’s a horrible habit,” Mycroft muttered. “I stress eat.”

“Well now you’re going to after-sex eat. Can I just— Drop this all over you and lick it off? Could be fun.”

“Absolutely _ not,” _ Mycroft laughed. “But hand me a spoon.” 

They traded inconsequential childhood stories over the carton, Mycroft taking pains to choose stories that didn’t brush up against anything painful, anything he didn’t wish to think about. He couldn’t fall out of practice while away from home; some things were to stay locked away, even as he let down every other guard for the man who was at that moment licking a smudge of vanilla bean ice cream from the corner of Mycroft’s mouth. 

“What did you want to be when you grew up?” Greg asked, dropping the empty carton to the floor beside the bed and tossing their spoons on the night table. “This job you’re going to do?”

Mycroft sighed. “No, of course not.”

“What _ is _ the job you’re going to do?”

“I will be an analyst.”

“An analyst of?”

“Data.”

Greg rolled his eyes. “Data of what sort?”

Mycroft laughed. “Your impression of me is—” 

“My impression of you isn’t an impression of you, it’s an impression of an uptight posh bastard, which is what you pretend to be.”

Mycroft’s lungs emptied so quickly he felt as though they should collapse. “Don’t hold back,” he said, wincing. 

“It wasn’t meant as an insult,” Greg said. He leaned forward and kissed the line between Mycroft’s eyebrows. “It was meant like… a compliment. You switch between so many modes it’s hard to keep up with you. I have a feeling the real one is the one where you’re quite funny and a bit sweet. Most people, that’s it. They are who they are and they have to work with what they’ve got. But you? You could be anything. You could be a professor, or some sort of mad science genius. You could be a _ spy _ like James Bond.”

Mycroft felt nausea rise in his throat and he swallowed hard against it. “What about you?”

“What? What about me?” 

“What did you want to be when you grew up?”

“You mean who _ do _ I want to be when I _ grow _ up because I haven’t yet?” Greg quirked one dark eyebrow and shrugged. He tipped himself off Mycroft’s lap and curled into his side instead. “I wanted to be a glam rocker when I was small. Like David Bowie.”

“Perfect,” Mycroft murmured against the top of Greg’s head. 

Greg smoothed his palm over Mycroft’s chest and sighed. “Now I suppose I’m not sure. I want to help people, I think. Once, I thought I might become a firefighter.”

“Too dangerous,” Mycroft protested. He shifted, rolling Greg onto his back. He kissed at the center of his chest, the dip where his collarbones met. 

“Maybe a social worker,” Greg said, with a yawn. “I dunno. It’s horrible to think about.”

“Yes,” Mycroft agreed. After a while he said, “I don’t want the job, the one I’m due to begin in the autumn. When I was a child I wanted to be a detective.”

“Like with the police?”

“Mmm, I suppose.” Mycroft sighed. “I’m quite good at puzzles.”

Greg leaned up and pressed a kiss to Mycroft’s mouth. “Of course you are. You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met.”

Normally, Mycroft could have choked on his own hatred of that statement. But Greg’s eyes were warm and sincere, and he was smiling with one side of his mouth. No one had ever said those words to Mycroft with that expression to go with them. 

“Thank you,” he said. 

**LONDON**

**MARCH, 2005**

  


A smile passed fleetingly over Mycroft’s face at the memory of that discussion, and he swallowed against vague embarrassment as he remembered exactly what they had been doing just before it. It was so unsettling to sit across from a person he had known so intimately, and not have the slightest idea what that person thought about all of it. Mycroft had interacted with other men he had slept with--in a purely professional manner, many times over. But that was the expectation. That was how they had set out to behave. This was a complete and incredibly awkward unknown.

“My childhood ambition,” Mycroft murmured, and shook his head. “You stole my idea, it seems.”

“A bit,” Greg said, nodding. “I still get angry at you some nights, when I’m stuck at a crime scene until the wee hours, with rain in my shoes and a pounding headache.”

“Let me guess— _ if I’d never met that bastard, I’d be a social worker by now.” _

Greg blinked, probably at the accuracy of the impression of his own accent. Or perhaps he couldn’t believe that Mycroft would remember such detail after all this time. “I did want to be a social worker, sort of. It was a maybe. But then, I was nothing but maybe’s back then.”

Mycroft sighed. “I was…” He shrugged.

“And did you analyze your data?” Greg wondered. 

Mycroft tipped his head in a nod. “I suppose I did.”

“Still do?”

“After a fashion.”

Mycroft could see questions in Greg’s eyes. He wondered if Greg wanted to ask Mycroft if he ever thought of him. Mycroft’s honest answer would of course be: _ yes, often _. But it was a ridiculous thing to say to someone, this many years later, and Greg married with a child. Greg’s thumb folded across his palm to fiddle with his wedding ring. Mycroft bit back a wry smile; perhaps they were in agreement on the subject, then. 

“You are happy,” Mycroft ventured. “That is, are you happy? As you are?”

Greg smiled tightly. “More or less,” he said. “You?”

Mycroft huffed. “More or less,” he echoed. “You’ve met Sherlock. My hands are somewhat full, as you can see.”

“Yeah,” Greg laughed, and some of the tension left him. He appeared relieved to change the subject. “We need to talk about Sherlock.”

“Yes,” Mycroft sighed. “I suspect we do.”

  



	3. Chapter 3

**PARIS**

**AUGUST, 1986**

The morning after the first night, Greg woke sprawled alone in Mycroft’s bed. He went out into the flat and found Mycroft in only his briefs, turning off the record player, where Joy Division’s first album had been left to play itself out while they were otherwise distracted in the small hours of the morning. It had been spinning all that time. 

“Are you hungry?” Myroft asked, hushed as though someone else was in the flat with them and still asleep. “Breakfast?”

“Still not going to tell me to get my shit and go, then?” Greg leaned against the wall beside the bedroom door, naked and hoping he didn’t look half as nervous as he felt.  _ I like you, _ he thought.  _ I never like people this much this fast.  _

“You can leave whenever you like,” Mycroft said, slipping the record into its sleeve and placing it in the box with the others. 

They’d played five or six of those last night, and Greg was mildly surprised that Mycroft didn’t alphabetize, just left the most recently played albums at the front. Mycroft, Greg had realized quickly, was a particular sort of person. A bit rigid. The first clue had been his obvious surprise at every turn the evening had taken. The second, a glimpse at his obsessively neat bathroom shelves. 

“What if I never want to?” Greg asked cheekily as Mycroft crossed the flat to stand in front of him. Greg reached for him and tugged him in close, tilting their hips together. 

“Then don’t,” Mycroft answered very seriously. 

Greg grinned. “I’m only in the country for ten more days.”

“Then stay here for ten days.”

“Bet you have to work come Monday.”

“Of course I do,” Mycroft said. “Stay anyway.”

Greg mulled this over while he let his fingers traced paths up and down Mycroft’s sides, counting his ribs, feeling the slightly raised freckles and moles there. “Why?” He asked after long moments. 

Mycroft’s turn to be quiet, he let Greg continue his explorations while his own hands stayed a bit nervously at Greg’s hips, his touch gentle like maybe he wasn’t sure it was allowed. Greg watched his face, and Mycroft watched Greg’s. After a while, Mycroft said, “Do you ever feel as though you are not and could not ever possibly be an adult?”

“What d’you mean?”

“We’re twenty. I started university at sixteen and completed two Masters degrees. In a few weeks I start a job that… it’s very serious. An extreme level of responsibility. I have a flat waiting in London. This is my flat, as well. I pay for it myself. But I don’t feel twenty. I feel thirteen. I feel like my younger brother must feel, if he’s anything like I was at his age. He is likely worse, as my brother has a certain…flair for the dramatic. But still, I don’t feel any different now than I did then. Have you ever felt that way?”

Greg blinked, completely thrown off. “Well. When I was thirteen my mum died and I went to live with my old auntie, who was…let’s just say  _ displeased _ with that turn of events. Feels like I’ve been on my own since then, really, and so…I guess I see what you’re saying, only I’ve felt ancient since forever. Thirteen going on thirty-nine, I suppose. Anyway, what does that have to do with—”

Mycroft surprised Greg again and kissed the words from his mouth. “I don’t talk about what I feel,” he said. “I don’t know how.”

“You just did.”

“Yes, I know. Exactly.”

“And how did you feel when you were thirteen?” Greg asked, finally.

“Terrified,” Mycroft said, and though his voice didn’t waver, Greg couldn’t look away from his face. He was so intense. Greg suspected he was  _ always _ this intense. That everything was always  _ incredibly serious _ for Mycroft. 

The night before had been one of the strangest and weirdly sexiest nights of Greg’s life so far. They’d talked, which was new for Greg as far as post-blowjob activities went. Mycroft had been reserved, and then had seemed to forget to be; he had a tendency to move from one topic to another in ways that didn’t immediately make sense to Greg, who would end up putting together the conversational threads on a delay, belatedly figuring out how one thing had logically led to the next. Mycroft was smart— like,  _ scary smart _ . He had excellent taste in music, in Greg’s opinion, though Greg had informed him that he was sorely lacking in punk education. 

_ By all means, make me a list, _ Mycroft had said, smirking. 

_ Why are you so hot? _ Greg had blurted, and then there had been kissing and groping and mutual hand jobs on the lounge floor. 

In the end, the total orgasm count of the night had been six between the two of them. 

Greg wondered if that was the thing— Mycroft was come-drunk, addicted to whatever last night had done for him when he clearly lived like a monk most of the rest of the time. But that didn’t ring true, if Greg really thought about it. It wasn’t lost on him that Mycroft, with his perfectly arranged toiletries but haphazard record collection, had just admitted to being knee-knockingly terrified of real life, while Greg, who was currently living out of a rucksack in a grotty youth hostel, had less than nothing planned for the future and hadn’t ever thought to worry about it. 

_ I could be good for you, _ Greg thought.  _ Is that it?  _

“Are you looking for a Paris fling, then?” he said aloud, because he’d be fucked if he could find the words to say any of that. “That’s what you’re asking for?”

“Perhaps,” Mycroft murmured. “I don’t know. I’d like to talk to you more. I’d like to…watch you eat a croissant at the cafe on the corner.”

Greg couldn’t help it, he laughed. He had to reel Mycroft back in and soothe the embarrassment on his face with more kisses. “You are so strange,” he said, shocking himself with the easy fondness in his own voice. “Alright, fine. I’ll stay. I’ll have to go for my things at the hostel. If you get sick of me, you can always kick me out whenever.”

“You’ll get sick of me first.”

“You know,” Greg said, rubbing his foot up and down Mycroft’s calf. “I really doubt it.”

  
**LONDON**

**JUNE, 2005**

Mycroft found Greg waiting for him in one of the creaky vinyl chairs in A&E. Greg sprung to his feet and started to speak, but Mycroft held up his hand. “It’s alright,” he said.

Greg subsided. “I assume you have all the information already.”

“Most of it,” Mycroft replied, setting down his umbrella and gesturing at the chairs. “Please, sit.”

They sat, and Greg leaned his elbows on his knees and rubbed at his face with his hands. “I haven’t heard anything,” he said. “What did they tell you?”

“I only know that you found Sherlock at his Montague Street address and made the call to 999,” Mycroft replied. He held himself stiffly in the chair beside Greg, afraid that if he relaxed so much as a finger he would dissolve into nothing. “I know that he wasn’t breathing and that you performed CPR until the ambulance arrived. I know that they are working on him now.”

“I’m sorry, Mycroft,” Greg said into his own hands. “I should have checked on him earlier.”

“This is not your fault,” Mycroft said, even as his chest seemed to fill with lead, with fear and anger. “Please, do not blame yourself.” 

Greg straightened in his seat and Mycroft was finally able to assess the state of him. Red-eyed and stubbled, Greg had been up all night the night before working the case for which he had needed Sherlock. Slept in his office, but not for long. His wedding ring was missing; he took it off to do the washing up perhaps two days ago and did not replace it on his finger. There was a large spot of blood on the cuff of his shirt, nearly hidden by his rumpled suit jacket—Sherlock’s nose had been bleeding, likely pouring it. Greg’s face was clean, but there had been blood there too, from the press of his face against Sherlock’s—Mycroft’s heart would surely fall from his chest if he kept that up. He closed his eyes against the onslaught of information and breathed. When he opened his eyes, Greg was watching him. 

“I am fine,” Mycroft said. 

“You don’t have to be,” Greg replied. “I’m not.”

Mycroft opened his mouth to apologize for doing this to Greg, for asking him to share this burden. He opened his mouth to tell Greg to go home to his family, the people he should be spending his time worrying over, but a doctor had arrived in the waiting room and was craning her neck to look for Greg.

“You’re the brother?” she asked, crisp, in a hurry. Long night in A&E. 

“I am,” Mycroft replied, standing. Beside him, Greg stood and wrung his hands.

“He’s stable for now,” the doctor said. “We’re waiting on the results of his blood work to determine what he took. He is unconscious, and may be for quite some time. Mister…”

“Holmes.”

“Mister Holmes, your brother’s heart stopped twice tonight. I suspect he has overdosed before?”

Mycroft hesitated. “Not as such, Doctor. I believe he has come close.”

“Well, he really tried this time,” the doctor sighed. “He is breathing on his own, which is good news. You can see him when we get him into a room. Mister Holmes, I believe your brother will recover, but I will be blunt. He nearly died tonight, and if he is using drugs at the level I think he is based on the state of him when he arrived here, this will happen again. He is stable, but the danger has not passed. A psychiatrist will see your brother before he is discharged, and our staff will provide you with information on treatment programs. I suggest your brother choose and enter one upon leaving hospital.”

“Thank you,” Mycroft said, barely able to make himself form the words. “Doctor, may I see my brother’s personal effects? There may be information among them which will help while you await the results of his toxicology screen.”

The doctor nodded. “I’ll send someone with them momentarily. Please wait here.”

Mycroft sank back down into a chair and drew in a long, slow breath. 

“What’s in his things that could help?”

Mycroft rubbed at his temple with shaking fingers. “A list.”

Greg’s hands dropped to his side, his expression one of disbelief. “A list of drugs he’s taken.”

“Yes,” Mycroft murmured. “It’s an agreement we have.”

“Christ,” Greg muttered, collapsing down beside Mycroft again. “The two of you.”

“Yes,” Mycroft said, agreeing with whatever that could mean— _ The two of you are awful. The two of you are disastrous. The two of you are hateful. The two of you can’t keep this up. The two of you are ruining my life. I wish I’d never met the two of you.  _

“I think you need a cuppa,” Greg informed him. “Do you still take it the same?”

“No sugar,” Mycroft replied, numb again with shock at the casual kindness, though he shouldn’t have been. Greg was the kindest person Mycroft knew. One of very few kind people he knew at all. 

“Yes, sugar,” Greg grumbled as he stood. “You want it, don’t lie.”

Mycroft closed his eyes and felt the tremor in his hand worsening. “Fine,” he whispered. 

“You’re bloody right it’s fine.”

Mycroft kept his eyes closed and listened to Greg moving away. Despite himself, despite it all, he smiled, just a small one, into his hand. 

  
  
  
**PARIS**

**AUGUST, 1986**

  
  


On Thursday of their week together—the only Thursday they’d get, since Greg had to get on a plane the next Tuesday—Mycroft met him at the market, where they’d agreed they would shop for ingredients to make dinner at the flat.

The night before, Greg had said:  _ I bet you’ve never cooked a meal for yourself.  _

Mycroft had refused to answer, but his averted eyes had been enough to confirm Greg’s suspicions. Mycroft had a tendency to simply avoid eye contact when he didn’t like a question; it was a tell he desperately wished to be rid of and one he had been able to train himself out of at work. It was hard to lie to Greg’s open, nonjudgmental face, however, and really Mycroft didn’t  _ want _ to lie to him. He didn’t want to admit to being incapable of boiling water for pasta, either. 

_ Right, _ Greg had said.  _ I’m going to teach you Spag Bol. Tomorrow. Disgraceful, Myc, a man should be able to make a simple pasta.  _

_ Don’t call me Myc, _ Mycroft had grumbled, and then Greg had kissed his scrunched up nose and things had gotten out of hand from there. 

Inside the market, during a lull in conversation in which Greg was inspecting a tomato for firmness in a thoroughly distracting way, Mycroft forced himself to say, “I have been invited to spend Saturday afternoon on a yacht.”

“Hard life you lead,” Greg replied, all fake sympathy. “I don’t know how you cope.”

“Would you.” Mycroft cleared his throat. He had dreaded this conversation all day. “That is, if you aren’t busy—”

Greg snorted. “I’ve committed my last ten days in Paris to you, haven’t I? I’m not busy.”

“We said that you could leave if you—”

“If I got tired of you,” Greg interrupted. “Which obviously I haven’t, because you’re  _ lovely, _ as I’ve said, so what? What, what, what? Mycroft, spit it out.”

Goaded, and rather nicely buoyed by being called lovely for the fourth time in as many days, Mycroft spit it out. “Would you like to go with me to an insufferable yacht party with insufferable people who like insufferable music, for an utterly insufferable afternoon? On Saturday?”

Greg laughed, tapping a finger against Mycroft’s chin and said, “Absolutely, you idiot.”

Mycroft guiltily warned him that they would have to be there  _ as friends _ . Greg gave him a pointed look and reminded him that Greg generally was  _ just friends _ with most men he knew, and he had no problem being that with Mycroft for one day on a swanky yacht. 

“I bet there’ll be really good beer,” Greg said wisely. “I can pretend not to like you for that.”

“I didn’t say pretend to dislike me,” Mycroft muttered.

“You know what I mean. Pretend not to  _ like- _ like you.” Greg made exaggerated kissy lips at Mycroft and fluttered his eyelashes. 

“Juvenile,” Mycroft snapped, marching out of the produce section with Greg cackling along behind him. 

Mycroft pretended to be annoyed with him until they had nearly reached the cash register, when Greg said, “I could never pretend to dislike you. Thank you for inviting me.”

Mycroft felt his heart stutter in his chest and smiled. “Thank you for saying yes.”

“Did you really think I would say no?”

Mycroft averted his eyes.

  
  


**LONDON**

**JUNE, 2005**

Greg watched from the doorway of the hospital room as Mycroft attempted to speak with Sherlock, and Sherlock treated him like shit on the bottom of his shoe. Greg’s fists clenched at his sides and he leaned hard with his shoulder into the doorjamb to keep himself still. He’d have liked nothing more than to march into that room and shake Sherlock by his shoulders, damn the tubes and monitors. Mycroft’s eyes flicked to Greg and something shifted in his face. 

“You at the very least owe Detective Inspector Lestrade your thanks,” he said. “An apology would not be out of order.”

“I didn’t ask him to come looking for me,” Sherlock snapped, not bothering to look at Greg. 

Mycroft opened his mouth to snip back, but Greg cleared his throat so Mycroft would look to him again. When he did, Greg shook his head and then tilted it to the left. Mycroft nodded. 

“I will return later,” he heard Mycroft say. “We  _ will _ speak then.”

“I won’t stay here.”

Mycroft’s snort was audible. “I’d like to see you try to leave.”

When Mycroft joined Greg in the hallway, his face was grey with exhaustion and tight with frustration. 

“How bad was the flat?”

Greg winced, shoving his hands in his pockets for want of something to do with them. “Pretty bad.”

“I shall have to go there,” Mycroft sighed. 

“I’ll come with you.”

Mycroft shook his head. “You should go home. I’m sure your wife is—”

“She’s taken Katie to visit her mother in Cheltenham,” Greg interrupted. “It’s alright, Mycroft. Sherlock’s shit won’t get me in hot water this time, alright? You shouldn’t go alone.”

Mycroft didn’t protest further, which concerned Greg more than anything else; in the months since they’d met again, Greg had spoken to Mycroft several times over the phone regarding the case that started it all, and once or twice concerning Sherlock. He’d only seen the man in person once more, in late April, by accident. Greg had been leaving Sherlock’s flat; Mycroft had been arriving. Greg had made overtures toward friendly chat each time they spoke, but Mycroft was reticent, slippery, even. 

In the back of a sleek car with a privacy screen between the back seat and the front, Greg studied the side of Mycroft’s face as passing streetlights strobed over it. He looked tired, stretched thin. Mycroft held his hands neatly folded in his lap, but Greg suspected they would tremor again if he tried to move them in that elegant way he had. 

They rode to Montague Street in silence, saying nothing until they arrived at the door to the flat to find that it had been left unlocked. 

“Careless of me,” Greg murmured as Mycroft pushed it open. “Sorry.”

“There is no need to apologize,” Mycroft said, pausing at the threshold. “There is nothing in here worth stealing, I can assure you.”

The place was a tip, and there was blood on the dingy white-ish carpet. Mycroft picked his way over piles of paper and boxes of what Greg thought looked like trash. Greg watched and hovered on a clear-ish patch of floor, unsure what he should do. Mycroft peeked into the kitchenette and sighed. He opened the door to the tiny bathroom and made a sound of distress in the back of his throat. 

A table shoved against the wall near the kitchen was scattered with laboratory equipment. Greg could see that a corner of the table was taken up by Sherlock’s injecting works— a syringe, a spoon, a lighter, a bunsen burner. Next to that, a shard of broken mirror was scattered with detritus: a cut fast food straw, an NHS card coated in crushed pill powder, empty baggies. Mycroft stood staring at that, and picked up a pill bottle that had been buried under an open book. Mycroft dug into his pocket and pulled a scrap of paper from it, gazing down at the scribble on it. He flipped to the front of the book and held the paper to the jagged edges of a missing flyleaf. 

“Mycroft?”

Mycroft was quiet. He slipped the torn scrap of paper behind the front page and snapped the book shut, holding it in his hand and staring off into space. 

Greg waited for him to say something, to move, anything, but Mycroft appeared frozen to the spot. 

“Mycroft…”

“I gave him this book for his graduation from University,” Mycroft said, his voice like silk scraped over a bed of nails, shredded and delicate. “I—” 

Greg flinched when Mycroft pitched the book at the wall, its heavy spine connecting with a crack and leaving a bit of a dent in the plaster before it fell with a plop to the ground. 

“ _ I can’t _ ,” Mycroft grated, spinning away from it all: the mess, the drug paraphernalia, the book, the flat. “I can’t do this anymore, I can’t.”

Greg let Mycroft shove past him and into the hall. He spotted Sherlock’s mobile sticking up between the cushions of the filthy sofa and crossed the room to grab it. He felt the need to pick up the book as well. He couldn’t make out the list of drugs very well, so he ignored it and tucked it between the pages again. There were more scribblings on the book’s pages, but none of it made sense. Greg could make out the odd word or two, words like EAST and OVER, and then at the bottom of the frontispiece, in harsh black letters pressed so angrily into the page that the paper had torn a bit:  _ REDBEARD. _

Greg sighed and shut the book, placing it gently on the table, then took himself out to the hall as well, shutting the door of the flat behind him. Mycroft leaned against the wall across from the flat, head tipped back, eyes closed. His face was a picture of misery, like if he would just let go for a moment he would lose all composure and cry. It was unsettling, seeing him like that, after the smooth politeness of every other interaction they’d had over the months. Greg wanted to touch him, comfort him,  _ do _ something. He wanted to say something, and could think of nothing.

“He is brilliant,” Mycroft said. “He is disgustingly brilliant, and he will throw it away like this, because of—”

“Mycroft—”

“I’m going to lose him.”

“Mycr—”

Mycroft covered his face with his hands. “What do I do?”

Greg sighed and reached out a hand, unsure what he planned to do with it until it landed at the side of Mycroft’s neck where it met his besuited shoulder. Greg squeezed. It was strange to touch Mycroft, but he couldn’t  _ not.  _ After months of smooth, almost cold professionalism from him, Greg felt completely shattered by the show of vulnerability. 

“I don’t know,” he whispered, biting down on the urge to add an endearment to the end of the sentence. Mycroft looked impossibly young and desperately afraid. 

“Lets go get a drink,” Greg said after a moment during which Mycroft dropped his hands and blinked at him. “Come on.”

“It’s late,” Mycroft protested, unmoving.

“Pubs’re open,” Greg insisted. “Let’s go. You need it.”

“I shouldn’t.”

“Neither should I.” Greg quirked an eyebrow. “Let’s do it anyway.”

Mycroft let out a breath and then seemed to undergo some sort of small transformation, drawing himself in and up again, pulling himself almost together. “Alright,” he said. “You’re right. I do need it.”

“That’s the spirit,” Greg said. He slipped his hand down to Mycroft’s shoulder and gave it a hard squeeze before tugging at him and pushing him toward the exit. “Come on.”

He kept his hand there until they reached the street. It felt wrong to let go, but Greg did, after motioning Mycroft into the car. He had to resist the urge to shake his hand as if burned by the first physical contact he’d had with the man in almost twenty years. 

  
**PARIS**

**AUGUST, 1986**

  
  


Greg had been a bit wrong about the party on the yacht— it  _ was _ hard not to touch Mycroft for an entire day on a boat, where everyone was half-dressed but only Mycroft appeared to want to shrink into himself and hide. Greg looked around at the others, a mix of over-tanned English and French arseholes plus their girlfriends (except, it seemed, for a sharp-eyed woman named Nathalie who was not a girlfriend-of and apparently worked with Mycroft. She had brought another girl with her instead of a date). He took in their feathery hair and big sunglasses, the high-cut bikinis on the girls, expensive deck shoes and sparkling watches on the guys, and then glanced surreptitiously at Mycroft. Slim and pale, no gaudy timepiece or flash footwear, shirt firmly on his back, Mycroft clearly never spent weekends baking on the decks of yachts. He sat a bit hunched, arms crossed over his midriff, as if covering nakedness even though he was fully clothed. He had worn shorts, and his knees looked endearingly vulnerable. 

Mycroft was so clearly self-conscious and miserable here, and Greg wanted to reach out and tug him close, whisper something sexy in his ear until he smiled. 

That’s what he would later remember most clearly about the entire day— the softness of that feeling, the ache in it.

Since he couldn’t do any of that, Greg sat casually beside Mycroft on the bench seat running along the side of the boat’s deck, and handed Mycroft a bottle of beer with a quick wink over the frames of his sunglasses. “Alright?” he murmured. 

Mycroft huffed. “Fine,” he said, then whispered, “I loathe this.”

As if on cue, one of the arseholes—a British one, whose name had been given as an obnoxious rich-boy nickname that Greg couldn’t remember—strolled over to say a series of annoying and vaguely insulting things to Mycroft. 

“He never brings friends out,” he said. “We thought maybe he put himself in deep freeze every evening and thawed out for work again in the morning.”

“No,” Mycroft drawled as if he could care less, even as his body drew tense next to Greg’s. “Wrong as usual, Harrington. I sleep upside down like a bat.”

Harrington guffawed, and slapped Mycroft on the shoulder. “Course you do, old boy, my mistake.”

“He’s a complete shithead,” Nathalie said in her delicate accent when she sat down on Greg’s other side moments later, as Harrington fucked off to go dance to shitty pop with the knot of girls on the other side of the boat. “Ignore him. What do you do, Greg?”

“Not much at the moment,” Greg told her sheepishly. “I suppose I’ve taken a gap year.”  _ Or three, _ he thought. 

“Well, that’s lovely,” Nathalie said. She shot Mycroft a look over Greg’s shoulder. “That one would wither and die if he took a vacation, let alone an entire year off. But he needs it, badly.”

“I  _ have _ taken a vacation before,” Mycroft protested, long-suffering, but not tense as he’d been with Harrington. “I’m not actually a robot.”

“I wasn’t aware you knew that, the way you go on,” Nathalie snipped back. Greg noticed the fondness creeping into her voice and decided he liked Nathalie. She turned her attention back to Greg. “He’s been nearly reasonable this week, however. Leaving the office before midnight, even.”

Greg blinked. Mycroft had been home every day at the perfectly normal hour of six. He filed away this information, the knowledge that Mycroft was some sort of workaholic, and twitched half a smile at Nathalie. “Has he?”

“Your influence, I assume,” Nathalie said, and her eyes were knowing. It made Greg nervous, but Mycroft gave him a reassuring nod from behind her. Nathalie leaned close and said, “Simone and I.”

Greg’s eyes flicked to the girl Nathalie had brought with her. She was laid out among a couple of other girls on the bow of the yacht, near a group of loud, drunk couples, including the tragically rhythm-less Harrington, who were dancing to Madonna while the sunbathers heckled them. Simone caught Nathalie’s eye and shot her a smirk across the width of the boat, one eyebrow raising behind her sunglasses. Nathalie waved, and Simone tilted her head down to wink back.

“Oh,” Greg said. “Right.”

Nathalie patted Greg’s knee but spoke to Mycroft. “Keep him.”

Mycroft breathed a choked-off laugh and when Greg turned to look at him, grinning, he was blushing. “Yes, thank you, Nathalie.”

“Thank you, Nathalie,” Greg echoed. She kissed his cheek. 

Most of the rest of the day would be a blur in Greg’s memory, but he would remember looking at Mycroft in that moment, with his red cheeks and sweet nervous eyes, with perfect clarity. 

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**LONDON**

**JULY, 2005**

Another pub this time. Mycroft often wondered if he could convince Greg to meet somewhere less…this. Quieter, with a better wine list. At pubs, Mycroft was limited to whiskey and vodka soda, and therefore had to be cautious about his intake lest he become intoxicated without intending to. 

Greg found him at the table toward the back, away from the bank of television screens playing several football matches. 

“Sorry I’m late,” Greg said, shrugging out of his suit jacket and hanging it over the back of the empty chair. He grinned at Mycroft’s wince and unbuttoned his cuffs, shoving his sleeves up to his elbows. “You have a drink, good. Ready for another? I’ll get the round.”

“Please,” Mycroft said, and watched Greg walk away to the bar. He tried hard not to enjoy the view, and failed. He drained the last of his scotch in time for Greg’s return. 

“I know you can read it on me,” Greg said once he’d sat down across from Mycroft. “She’s gone back to her mother, Katie too. I’m fine with it.”

“I am sorry, nonetheless,” Mycroft said softly. “Any chance for reconciliation?”

“I dunno,” Greg said, and took a long drink from his pint glass. “She says she needs space to think. I don’t blame her for all the things she says. I work too much, I’m never there, distracted when I am. I’m a good father, terrible husband.”

Mycroft hummed. “You are a very good father.”

Greg leaned his chin on one hand and made a face. “I won’t ask how you’d know such a thing,” he said. “Considering you’ve never laid eyes on Katie or actually seen me with her.” 

“You love her,” Mycroft said simply. “I know you have attended six ballet recitals in three years, because you told me about them once, in detail. I know you have her last three school presentations memorized from practicing with her, because you recited the one about sedimentary rock to me the last time we met for drinks.” 

“I do love her,” Greg murmured into his glass. “I know you know she’s not mine.” 

“She is yours.”

“Well, yeah. But you know I met Tina when Katie was only a couple of months old. I’m sure it’s in my file.” 

“The dates bear it out,” Mycroft confirmed. “But as I have assured you, I did not read your file.” 

Greg smiled. “Honorable of you, respecting my privacy. You try not to deduce me, don’t you?”

“Of course.” 

Greg drank quietly, leaning back in his chair. Mycroft stared down into his own glass, unsure what he should say next. 

“Sherlock is doing well,” Greg said after a moment. 

“I know.” Mycroft smiled thinly. “We don’t have to talk about Sherlock. Tell me more about how you’re doing.” 

Greg sighed. “I don’t want to.  _ You _ tell _ me _ about  _ you.”  _ At Mycroft’s expression, he laughed. “Uh huh, knew you wouldn’t like that. But I’m asking, anyway.”

“There is nothing to tell. Work continues to be work, and something I cannot elaborate on beyond that.” Mycroft shrugged one shoulder. “I am boring.  _ Stuffy _ , one might say.”

“You do nothing but work and occasionally drink with me, then? I doubt that.”

“Do you assume I spend my nights going out dancing? Attending book club meetings? Volunteering?”

“Don’t be cheeky,” Greg laughed. “Maybe you do, how would I know?”

“I exercise,” Mycroft admitted. “I read. I watch old films. Once a week I email my mother, and once a month we speak on the phone. The rest of my time is as you have witnessed. Work, Sherlock, and occasionally drinking with you.”

“Friends?”

“Colleagues.”

“Boyfriend?”

_ “When?” _

Greg studied Mycroft from across the table and Mycroft very carefully did not so much as twitch under the scrutiny. After a moment, he ventured, “You have had boyfriends. You just don’t, now.”

“Not for a long time,” Mycroft confirmed. “Relationships are complicated.”

“Well, that’s the truth,” Greg agreed and offered his nearly-empty glass for Mycroft to tip his tumbler against. “Tell me about the last ex.”

“Absolutely not.”

“You know about Tina!”

“I know very little about your wife.” 

“Want me to tell you about her?”

“I… What would be the purpose?”

“It’s what friends do, Mycroft.”

Mycroft shifted in his seat, unsure how he was expected to react to any part of the conversation. After a while he conceded, “That is probably correct.”

Greg huffed a laugh. “I’ll start. Before Tina, it was Holly, who I met through Frank, another ex. Holly was a copper too; we broke up because she transferred out of London and I didn’t want to go to the country. Long distance didn’t interest either of us. I dated Frank on and off for a few months in oh, around ’93. He was a musician. He died the year I married Tina.”

Mycroft swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

“He isn’t the only ex gone,” Greg said. “I’m lucky I never...you know. Careful is good, but it isn’t ironclad.”

“I fear I can’t relate,” Mycroft murmured, the old feeling of disconnect rising in him. Mycroft had been what one could consider close with probably three other homosexual men in his entire life. “I have dated rarely, and socialized hardly at all outside of the realm of work. I barely know anyone who… no one I was close with. Old colleagues I suspect, based on the publicly known cause.”

“Thirty year olds don’t often kick it from pneumonia,” Greg said. “Do they?”

“Not these days.” Mycroft sighed, thinking but not saying that it had been painful more than once, realizing (or confirming his deductions) that a colleague had been...well. Like Mycroft. But only truly knowing it once the obituary had been printed. 

“To be honest,” Greg said, “the crew I hung around with as a kid was a rather artsy one. I picked back up with them when I came back here, and I’m still sort of in touch with a couple of ‘em. More are gone than I like to think about. Becoming a copper though, it strained things. Settling down with Tina was the last straw for some of my old friends. I became the enemy, you see: a cop, and a settled heterosexual. I don’t think anyone I see or speak to regularly remembers me as anything else, at this point.”

“I can personally attest that you are not heterosexual,” Mycroft said blandly. 

Greg laughed, his gaze snapping to Mycroft’s in surprise. “You never mention it,” he said, and Mycroft knew he meant their brief shared past.

“I have never wished to make you uncomfortable.”

There was a long quiet, and Greg seemed to study Mycroft. “You could never,” he said at last, one thumb rubbing absently at his own lower lip. Mycroft tried not to watch it; he failed, and Greg certainly noticed. 

Mycroft cleared his throat. “Another drink?”

“Please,” Greg replied, and his voice was just a little rough. 

  
  
  


**PARIS**

**AUGUST, 1986**

  
  


After the ordeal on the yacht, Mycroft kissed Greg everywhere, the taste of sweat and tanning lotion mingling with the bite of latex, and after they had both come he gasped, “I hate all of them. You’re worth  _ ten _ Harringtons.”

Greg blinked up at him and laughed. “Alright, noted.” 

The record player was on loud enough to hear from the bedroom, an album Greg had bought for Mycroft a couple of days before, having forced him into a record store to ‘ _ begin his education.’  _ Mycroft had tried to pay and Greg had ripped the money from his hands and shoved it into the back pocket of Mycroft’s trousers right there in the shop, not that the bored teenager behind the counter had seemed to care. 

_ It’s a gift _ , Greg had said. 

_ Who wants to be happy forever? Up to you _

_ You know that fate brought us together _

_ And when time has left you too weak to resist _

_ I hope you will remember this _

Mycroft heard the lyrics without trying and filed them away for later. He touched his palms to Greg’s cheeks and kissed him, slowly. “After today we only have two full days together,” he said. 

“You’ll be working for one,” Greg sighed. “It’s alright, yeah? We could meet up back home? I mean, if you wanted.”

“Yes, please,” Mycroft whispered, relief flooding him in a rush. “Of course I want to.”

“Good,” Greg grinned. “If you’re half as much of a workaholic as Nathalie said earlier, you’re going to need someone to force you to have a little fun once in a while, yeah?”

“Yes,” Mycroft agreed firmly, as a more upbeat song followed the one just ended. He felt a smile, embarrassingly happy, too hopeful, spreading across his own face, beyond his control, and he buried his face in Greg’s neck to hide it. 

“Lovely man,” Greg said fondly. “Did you think I’d never want to see you again?”

“Perhaps,”’ Mycroft grumbled, muffling it against Greg’s skin. 

“Thought you were meant to be very smart,” Greg teased. “Give me a few weeks. By the time you get back to London I’ll have myself sorted, my whole life figured out. I’ll take you to a rock show in your work suit, bring you home and shag you senseless, then we’ll head off to work in the morning like proper responsible grown-ups. I’ll fix your tie for you.”

Mycroft hummed, his chest expanding with a hot, breathless hope that feels nearly choking in its intensity. “Alright,” he said, and he didn’t think of anything: not Sherlock, about whom Mummy did not worry enough; not Eurus, wherever she was; not Uncle Rudy, or his heavy walnut desk in his heavy dark office; not MI6 or Her Majesty the Queen. Only this, and the tiny thread of possibility that maybe Mycroft could  _ have it. _

Greg pushed Mycroft onto his back and began to kiss his way down Mycroft’s chest and Mycroft gasped, pulling in air alongside that knot of hope, which threatened to collapse his lungs with every indrawn breath. 

He could have this. He  _ would. _

**LONDON**

**JULY, 2005**

It was late by the time they left the pub, and Greg was drunk. He couldn’t tell if Mycroft was, but probably not. The clever bastard had switched to water after his third drink, and that had been several pints ago for Greg. They’d talked about Sherlock: Mycroft couldn’t convince him into rehab, and neither could Greg; did Mycroft think he was clean for now?  _ No, but at least he seemed to be doing his drugs with a modicum of caution lately _ . Did Greg?  _ Hard to say _ . What would they do?  _ Identical despairing shrugs _ . They’d talked about Katie: Did Greg miss her?  _ Of course _ . Did he think Tina would let him see her?  _ Yes, but work would make it complicated _ . Where would Greg go?  _ He didn’t know _ . They’d talked about football: Mycroft followed it?  _ More of a rugby fan _ . You just like rougher men. _ Perhaps _ . 

Smirking. 

Laughing. 

They’d talked about Mycroft’s most recent movie night. 

Greg:  _ Don’t you get tired of watching films by yourself?  _ No answer, change of subject. 

Later, Mycroft:  _ Are you truly alright?  _ No answer, change of subject. 

Greg stood outside the pub, listening to the door locking behind them. 

“Didn’t mean to keep you out so late,” he said, turning to Mycroft and finding him fiddling with his umbrella in one hand, mobile in the other, about to call for his car, but hesitant. 

“I’ll have my driver take you home,” Mycroft said. 

Greg shook his head. “No, it’s fine. I need the walk. Might sober me up.”

Mycroft’s eyebrows drew together in concern. “It’s late.”

“I know,” Greg sighed. “You’re sweet to worry.”

Mycroft’s lips twitched. “I am not  _ sweet." _

Greg, feeling more than a little out of control of his actions, leaned in closer. “But I know that you are.”

He was close enough to hear Mycroft’s breath hitch. 

“Greg—“

“In a month it’ll be nineteen years since we met. Are you still terrified all the time, Mycroft?”

Mycroft closed his eyes. “No.”

“It’s funny,” Greg murmured. “I always felt old, and now I am and sometimes I could swear I’m twenty again.”

“We aren’t old,” Mycroft said, opening his eyes again. They were very pale, and very guarded. Greg was very close to them now. “Greg, don’t.”

“Why not?”

Greg could have leaned forward an inch and their lips would have touched. He was so curious about whether it would feel different from the way he thought it did before. He had been for months, thinking about it at inappropriate times, which was all the time, because Greg was a married man. 

“You’re going to reconcile with your wife,” Mycroft said softly. 

“Deduced that, did you?” 

“I don’t need to.”

Greg stepped back and away. “She cheated.”

“I know,” Mycroft said gently. “You don’t have it within you to do the same.”

“Sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for. Let me call you a cab.”

Greg let him, because he didn’t know what else to do. 

**PARIS**

**AUGUST, 1986**

Mycroft called in sick on the day Greg was scheduled to leave, which Greg got the impression was a first. 

“You can’t go to the airport alone,” Mycroft insisted. “I won’t have it.”

“You’re sweet,” Greg said, and dread was sharp, painful in his chest. “Don’t think poorly of me if I cry at the gate.”

Mycroft rolled his eyes, taking it as intended— a joke. It wasn’t a joke. Even now, Greg felt vaguely like dropping to his knees and begging Mycroft to keep him in Paris with him for the next month. Greg could stow away in Mycroft’s suitcase to get back to England. He didn’t need money or a job, he didn’t need to leave and stay with old mates in some grotty flat in Spitalfields. He needed this, just this, wandering around Paris all day, hanging around with the spare group of acquaintances he’d found there, and coming home in time to greet Mycroft at the end of the day. 

The last year had been complete shit for Greg, but the last nine days had felt like a fucking  _ revelation.  _ Greg, the itinerant bastard son unwelcome in his father’s new life, unknown to his half-siblings and disdained by his stepmother, half an orphan with a half-arsed education under his belt and not much else, would probably figure it all out eventually, and he could do it this way, with a nice boy to go to dinner with here and there, ice cream in bed and kissing and scratchy records, staying up talking until three in the morning. Someone might want him to stay. Mycroft might want him to stay. Even in London. 

“We’ve got to go,” Greg said roughly, blinking against the ache behind his eyes. “Right. I have something for you.”

It was an envelope from Mycroft’s own desk. Mycroft took and and turned it over in his hands. 

“Just the details for my mate’s flat,” Greg explained. “I dunno if I’ll still be there in a month, but I’ve known him all my life. Call his number, bang on his door, he’ll know where to find me. Or I’ll still be kipping on his sofa.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Will that work?”

“Of course,” Mycroft said softly. “Hold on.”

Greg followed Mycroft to the bedroom, and watched from the doorway as Mycroft took down his suitcase from the closet, opened it on the bed, and tucked the envelope inside. 

“Safe as houses,” Greg said, and Mycroft smiled and closed the suitcase before putting it back in its place. 

“Indeed,” Mycroft said, then crossed the bedroom in three long strides, reaching for Greg and pulling him into a hard kiss. “I need to do this now,” he murmured, and kissed him again. And again. “Before the airport.”

“Yeah,” Greg gasped, stretching into the next kiss. Mycroft was a good kisser from the start, but he’d gotten even better. He knew exactly how Greg liked it: held close and tight, a hand at his neck or cheek or the back of his head. Greg liked to feel surrounded, and for ten days Mycroft had surrounded and surrounded him and now it was the last time. Greg bit Mycroft’s lower lip in desperation, and Mycroft hissed, then used both hands to hold Greg’s face still while he gentled the kiss. 

“It’s alright,” Mycroft murmured when they pulled away. “Let’s go, you can’t miss your flight.”

Greg took a deep breath and forced a smile. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

He had the strange urge to say goodbye to the box of albums before he left, and satisfied himself with one last glance around the flat. 

_ Good place, _ he thought.  _ On to the next. _

**LONDON**

**DECEMBER, 2005**

Mycroft hadn’t expected to run into Greg at the upscale rehab facility currently holding his younger brother hostage (Sherlock’s words). It surprised him that he hadn’t expected it; Mycroft should have been able to read between the lines of their texts and the silences of their phone calls, brief and rare as they had been since summer. 

Mycroft had contacted Greg via text a week ago after CCTV showed him pacing, agitated, in front of Sherlock’s Montague Street address. 

**To: Gregory Lestrade**

He is not there, Inspector.

Mycroft had watched the feed himself as Greg received the message, glanced around in exasperation, then leaned against the wall of the building to tap out his reply. 

** _From: Gregory Lestrade_ **

How did you know I was here? Don’t be so formal. 

Where’s he got off to?

**To: Gregory Lestrade**

He has voluntarily entered treatment at a rehabilitation 

center in Sussex. 

Mycroft’s phone had begun to ring, the outside screen lighting up:  _ G. Lestrade _ . Mycroft flicked it open and answered. “Detective Inspector.”

“Stop that,” Greg groused at the title and then, switching tracks, ” _ Voluntarily? _ ”

Mycroft leant back in his desk chair and hummed. “More or less, yes,” he said. “He is booked in for the standard ninety days as of one week ago. A reprieve for you, I’d imagine, and well-deserved.”

“He’s been…”

Mycroft watched on the computer screen as Greg pinched the bridge of his nose. His phone was in the hand furthest from the camera. His expression in profile was distressed rather than annoyed. He cared how Sherlock was, had been distressed over how he had been lately. Mycroft wasn’t surprised by this, but he was warmed all the same. 

“He’s been difficult lately,” Greg said, his hand falling away from his face and to his side, fumbling in his coat pocket. “Not— Not difficult like usual, but difficult like…unwell.” 

Mycroft watched Greg extract a packet of cigarettes from his coat pocket and yearned for his own. He watched as Greg wedged his little flip phone between head and shoulder so he could use both hands to light up. 

“Yes,” Mycroft murmured, watching with more fascination than was purely appropriate for an act as mundane as taking a drag off a cheap cigarette. “I know. You have been exceedingly patient with him.”

“Worried,” Greg said. “Thought about whether I should call you. Sorry if I…”

“It’s quite alright,” Mycroft reassured him. “I appreciate your…efforts with Sherlock.” 

“Things have just been a bit of a mess lately,” Greg said—murmured, distracted. On the CCTV, he was contemplating his cigarette. 

“He did not overdose,” Mycroft said. “I managed to head that off at the pass this time, thankfully. Are you al—”

Mycroft’s assistant poked her head through the door after a short, brisk knock. Mycroft tore his eyes away from the screen, where Greg had begun to relax, somewhat, against the outside wall of the Montague street slum. She raised one eyebrow at him; he nodded in return. “I’m afraid I must go,” he said to Greg’s figure on the screen and to his phone. 

Greg looked disappointed, turning his body against the wall a bit, cupping his phone close. “Text me the details of the facility, would you?”

“Of course,” Mycroft said, a vague ache he had managed to banish for some months making its return known in his chest. “Thank you for your concern for my brother, Inspector. He…I’m sure he appreciates it.”

Greg snorted, and on Mycroft’s screen he looked frustrated and resigned. “Sure he does. Anyway, it’s no problem. Have a good day,  _ Mister Holmes _ .”

“And yourself,” Mycroft said, ignoring the dig at his forced formality, already locking down his computer and reaching for his jacket as he rang off. 

Two weeks later, Mycroft wondered what he had missed during that call, and how he had missed it. He’d been looking right at the man. He should have picked up on the possibility from body language. From the simple fact that Greg asked for the details of the rehabilitation center. From the way he answered Mycroft’s apologetic text providing said information late at night, days later, while he waited to board a flight home from New York. It should have been clear, but it simply hadn’t crossed Mycroft’s mind that he and Greg would plan to visit Sherlock on the same day. But they did, and here they were.

“I don’t want to look at either of you,” Sherlock sniped, staring out a window at the rolling, if bleak and frozen at this time of year, grounds beyond the center’s veranda and activity fields. “It’s giving me a stomach ache.”

“Don’t be such a prick,” Greg said cheerfully. “We both hauled our arses all the way out here to see you.”

“You’ve seen me,” Sherlock drawled. “I’ve seen you. Hello. Goodbye. Take  _ Mycroft _ with you.”

Greg glanced at Mycroft over Sherlock’s head and grimaced. It was the first time they had stood in a room together in nearly six months. 

Mycroft had arrived to find them like this, at a little table by the windows, Sherlock’s back to the door, Greg sitting across from him with two small coffees in paper cups between them. When Mycroft entered, Sherlock favored him with a cursory glance, scoffed, and turned back to Greg. 

Now, Greg told Sherlock, “Take the coffee I brought you, then I’ll get out of your hair— which needs brushing, by the way. You’re a mess, mate, sort yourself out.” He pushed one of the coffee cups closer to Sherlock and stood, giving Sherlock a punch on the shoulder as he went. “I’ll not have you showing up to my crime scenes looking like this, that’s for certain. Hair brushing is the minimum effort I’ll expect from you when I see you back in London.”

Sherlock’s head whipped away from the window, his eyes seeking Lestrade’s face. “You’ll let me onto crime scenes again?”

Greg punched him again, lightly, in deference to Sherlock’s somewhat frail state. “Not all of them, mind. But if you’re good and work your program— probably, yeah.”

“You could bring me cold cases now—”

“Detective Inspector Lestrade will do no such thing,” Mycroft interrupted swiftly. “You are here to focus on your recovery. You know the rules, Sherlock.”

Sherlock wrinkled his nose, eyes narrowing. “Oh, piss off, Mycroft. Who asked you?”

“Hey,” Greg said firmly, clamping one hand down on the shoulder he’d just hit in playfulness. “Watch it. Be good.”

“Make him go,” Sherlock stropped. “His face makes me long for a needle.”

“You’re a dick,” Greg said flatly. “Stop it, Sherlock.” He looked over at Mycroft and rolled his eyes apologetically, which was a new experience for Mycroft: someone apologizing to  _ him _ for Sherlock’s antics. To Sherlock, Greg said, “I’m going now so you can speak with your brother.  _ Be decent. _ ” 

Greg shot Mycroft an apologetic smile as he left. 

“He’s heterosexual,” Sherlock announced once Greg was gone. 

“Brilliant deduction,” Mycroft drawled, even as his blood ran momentarily cold, and then hot with relief at the understanding that Sherlock had no idea. “What was your first hint, the wife at home?”

“Pff,” Sherlock uttered with a roll of his eyes. “ _ Now. _ The separation worked in my favor; the wife didn’t like me  _ bothering _ your precious Detective Inspector in his ‘off hours.’ Tedious. Now she’s back, and pregnant to boot. Annoying.”

Mycroft very carefully did not react. “You are not to bother Detective Inspector Lestrade at home, regardless of where that may be,” he admonished. “He’s been kind to you, Sherlock. Be respectful.”

Sherlock cut his glance at Mycroft. “As I said, he is heterosexual. Your crush is embarrassing.”

“I do not—” Mycroft stopped himself, clenching his jaw. “I merely do not wish for you to lose your only friend in this world due to your utterly deplorable attention to personal boundaries. Sherlock—”

Sherlock sighed and returned his gaze to the window. “You’ve seen me. I’m alive and still clean. You had a little confab with the head therapist here before coming into this room. Your duty has been fulfilled, brother mine. You may go now.”

Mycroft clenched his fist at his side, his other hand gripping his umbrella tightly enough to cause the wood handle to creak, and drew a long, calming breath. “Fine. That’s fine, Sherlock. I have better things to do than stare at the side of your face for an hour, so I shall leave you until next week. I would like to see you at the holidays, if that is quite alright with you. Mummy will be calling soon.  _ Behave _ yourself.”

Sherlock waved him off without looking away from the window again. Mycroft, shoving away the niggling onset of guilt, took his leave. 

It was freezing cold, but obnoxiously and unbearably sunny outside that day. Mycroft squinted into the light as he crossed the threshold out of the softened light of the rehab center and toward the parking lot. It took him a moment to notice the grey-haired figure waiting for him, leaned up against a wrought iron fence just at the edge of the asphalt. 

“Sorry I ruined your visit,” Greg said, once Mycroft’s eyes had adjusted and he approached him. “I think I annoyed him by showing up unannounced. He was in an art class. Seemed embarrassed to be caught  _ participating _ , god forbid.”

Mycroft felt himself smile, wan, as he shook his head. “You are unlikely to catch Sherlock in a good mood while he’s here. He quite resents it. There’s no need for an apology. If anything, your presence softened him toward me. Had you gone before I arrived, I might have found myself with a coffee lobbed at my head upon walking through the door.”

Greg scoffed and rolled his eyes. “What a little shit,” he said, genuinely annoyed on Mycroft’s behalf, but with a distinct note of fondness toward  _ Sherlock _ of all people, for which Mycroft was desperately grateful. “I imagine he’d be dead in a ditch without you. ‘Course…” Greg sighed. “I wonder if that’s what he’d prefer.”

Mycroft stared at the man standing in front of him, and for the first time since he arrived at the center, his brain began to actually function at somewhat normal capacity. He catalogued several things all at once: casual clothing, worn denim and a soft, old t-shirt under a light twill jacket; trainers meant for running, obviously purchased and usually only used for that purpose; slightly overdue for a haircut; stress under the eyes; nicotine stains; breakfast bought on the go—no, microwaved. 

“Things are…well?”

Greg blinked and shoved his hands into his pockets. “If you really want to know? Not really. I’m fine. Good enough for government work.”

Mycroft tried and failed to stifle a disgraceful snort of a laugh. “Is that a dig?”

“Maybe,” Greg replied, grinning. “Listen… I’m sorry for how I acted last time I saw you. I was drunk and lonely, and you were being a good friend. You…were right. Tina moved back in before Katie’s school term started up. What I did, what I thought about doing…”

Mycroft read a thousand useless things in Greg’s dress and stance and physical state. None of them told him if Greg was or could be happy. None of them told him if Greg regretted nearly kissing him outside a closed pub, or reconciling with his wife. Mycroft didn’t know if “not really” meant that he should press Greg for more information; if he was allowed to ask something so personal, after the last time. Myroft didn’t know what to say, and so he remained silent. 

After a beat, Greg sighed and scrubbed a hand over his hair. “Would you want to get a pint somewhere?”

Mycroft raised his eyebrows. “A pint?”

“Or pick your poison,” Greg said with a shrug. “Doesn’t much matter to me. But I could use a drink, and I’d bet good money you could, too. I’ve missed talking to you. I’d like to buy you a round in apology for overstepping with you, and then not calling to apologize sooner. What with the 7 th —”

Mycroft barely noted the reference to the July bombings; His work revolved almost exclusively around the topic these days, and he knew trying to talk about it would make clear that there was nothing of substance Mycroft could say to Greg about it. 

“It’s two in the afternoon,” he said instead.

Greg kept grinning at him. “It’s Sunday.”

“That’s—” 

“’S alright if you’re busy,” Greg said, feigning casual. “I get it.”

“No,” Mycroft said impulsively, surprising himself. “I’m not busy. A drink would be…nice. I…have also missed our meetings.”

“ _ Meetings _ ,” Greg sighed. “Right. There’s a place I passed on my way down here, up the main road a ways. Follow me in your car?”

Mycroft briefly considered declining, fabricating a reason to head back to London immediately. But this was Greg, who cared about Sherlock and who, for a brief and distant yet bright and memorable time had completely upended Mycroft’s world. Aside from that, this was the one person Mycroft could, at this point, call a friend. He was unable to force himself to sever the last fragile thread between them by rejecting him now. 

“Alright,” Mycroft said. “I’ll follow you.”

**LONDON**

**SEPTEMBER, 1986**

Mycroft stood in front of the baggage carousel in Heathrow and watched every bag leave with an owner. He stood there long after the belt emptied, staring at the empty space where his case should be. 

_ No, _ he thought.  _ No, no, no—  _

He was an idiot. The stupidest person to ever live. The kind of fool who had a photographic memory but didn’t look at a piece of paper before putting it in his luggage. The kind of unforgivable moron who didn’t ask for or offer up a last name to a man with whom he spent ten days playing house. As if doing so would ruin the  _ romance _ . The  _ magic. _ Mycroft could fling himself under the wheels of a jet as it taxied down the runway. He berated himself as he waited in line at the lost baggage counter. He broke into a cold sweat as he crumpled a form in his hand. He swallowed down nausea as he picked up his briefcase in one hand and patted his pocket to feel for his wallet with the other.

Mycroft pulled himself together; He would find Greg some other way. He would ask Uncle Rudy for help. 

As if summoned by Mycroft’s thoughts, Uncle Rudy appeared a moment later, leaning on an umbrella several yards away. Mycroft approached him, the question already on his lips:  _ Hello Uncle, I expected my mother here today. Happily, I had something I wished to ask you— _

“Mycroft,” Rudy said, and it was the grave set of his mouth that drew Mycroft up short. “My boy, something terrible has happened.”

Mycroft’s blood ran cold. “Not Sherlock—”

“No, dear boy,” Uncle Rudy said, placing a hand on Mycroft’s shoulder. “Your sister.”

Mycroft’s eyes closed and he felt the world move under his feet, a shift, a seismic event. “What has she done?”

“Burned her room at the hospital down, and half the wing with it. And now it is down to us to make a hard choice. Are you prepared to take this on with me, Mycroft?”

A conversation from more than a year ago echoes in Mycroft’s mind. Uncle Rudy’s club. He can smell the furniture polish. He can hear the swish of shoe covers over antique carpets. He can feel a cut glass tumbler in his own hand. 

Mycroft said the same thing he’d said then: “I will do whatever is necessary, Uncle Rudy.”

The hand on Mycroft’s shoulder tightened. “Good lad. Come now, we’ve a helicopter to catch.”

**LONDON**

**AUGUST, 2006**

  
  


“Mycroft!” Greg shouted, legs working double time to catch up with the other man’s long stride. 

Mycroft turned, wiping the surprise from his face just a beat too late— Greg saw it, and he grinned, waving. 

Greg hugged him when he drew close enough, and Mycroft was stiff in his grasp, breath hitching with surprise. Greg pulled away, telling himself not to breathe in the scent of Mycroft’s cologne as he went, clapping Mycroft’s shoulders. “Sorry! I— We don’t do that, do we? Sorry, sorry, it’s just been ages!”

“A few months now,” Mycroft acknowledged. 

They were stood outside the Old Bailey, and Greg winced, both at the public and political location and the distance between this meeting with Mycroft and the last. “At least three,” he said, letting his hands drop and stepping away. “Sorry, new baby and everything.”

“No need to apologize,” Mycroft said gently. “I was out of the country for about a month, myself. It’s good to see you. You look well.”

“I do not,” Greg snorted. “Patrick never sleeps, Katie’s having a bit of an extended strop now he’s arrived, and Tina… I look haggard and old, and I know it.”

“No,” Mycroft said softly. “You look like a father. A tired father, but…” 

Greg grinned at the familiar, elegant shrug that accompanied that last bit. He had missed Mycroft. “You, on the other hand,  _ do _ look bloody fantastic.” He nearly winced at himself. That was a bit much, even if it was true. “I mean, you know. You’ve got a bit of color. Where on earth have you been?”

“Ah,” Mycroft murmured. “I would tell you, but…”

“But then you’d have to kill me,” Greg laughed. “God, it’s good to see you. I’ve got to run back to the office, but I’d love to get a drink sometime.”

“We are overdue for one,” Mycroft agreed. “Here.”

Greg took the proffered business card. 

“That is my assistant’s line,” Mycroft clarified at Greg’s raised eyebrow. “Of course you can always contact me directly, but lately I’ve been rather… set upon with appointments. Charys is my assistant, and she keeps an iron grip on my schedule. I’m barely permitted to know what it contains, as of late. Call her, and she’ll make the time for it.”

“Right,” Greg said, flipping the card between his fingers. It felt strange in his hand. Cold and impersonal. He felt a vague sense of offense at being foisted on Mycroft’s assistant, but when he looked up, Mycroft was looking at him with a strange wariness that stopped Greg from saying anything about it. “Are things alright? Is Sherlock?”

“Most likely you see more of my brother than I,” Mycroft said. “Last I checked, he was continuing to avoid eviction by the skin of his teeth. Clean, though.”

“Thank god for that,” Greg sighed. “I did see him last month; mafia business.”

“Mmm,” Mycroft tilted his head. “I saw the papers.”

“Like you get your news from the papers,” Greg scoffed, then checked the time. “Shit. I really do need to go. Sorry.”

Mycroft smiled. “As do I, please don’t apologize. I’ll see you soon?”

“I hope so,” Greg said, meaning it. “Stay safe, yeah?”

“Always,” Mycroft replied, his voice warm. It made Greg long for something he couldn’t quite name. “You as well.”

He just smiled, not letting himself examine it, wanting instead to make sure Mycroft knew he was missed, that this chance meeting had been good— very good, the highlight of Greg’s day, though he couldn’t say as much. “Bye, then,” he said. 

“Until next time.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To Be Continued…

**Author's Note:**

> This will update as I finish last passes over each chapter until the fic is complete (there are 4 parts. And a sequel!) 
> 
> This fic will contain references to: period-typical homophobia (offscreen), the AIDS crisis (offscreen), drug abuse (canon typical), and infidelity (offscreen)


End file.
